Telling stories: Gender differences in peers’ emotion talk and communication style

Tenenbaum, Harriet R.; Ford, Sarah; Alkhedairy, Betul

doi:10.1348/2044-835x.002003

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…However, given the relationships between OT levels and anxiety in girls in the present study, along with findings of associations between anxiety and atypical and autism‐related language in males with ASD [Solomon, Ozonoff, Carter, & Caplan, ], future studies should investigate potential relationships among OT, anxiety, and language dysregulation in males and females with ASD to determine whether individual differences in anxiety levels moderate such associations. Because there are sex differences in many aspects of language, including the autism‐related ability to provide adequate listener context [Bitan, Lifshitz, Breznitz, & Booth, ; Tenenbaum, Ford, & Alkhedairy, ], it is noteworthy that there was a consistent relationship between plasma OT levels and social language abilities across both males and females, although notably some of these significant associations did not survive adjustment for multiple comparisons. Still, this raises the possibility that mechanisms of action for OT are such that there is no dimorphism in the language domain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Sex Differences and Associations With Symptoms

et al. 2013

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There has been intensified interest in the neuropeptides oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) given their role in affiliative and social behavior in animals, positive results of treatment studies using OT, and findings that genetic polymorphisms in the AVP-OT pathway are present in individuals with ASD. Nearly all such studies in humans have focused only on males. With this preliminary study, we provide basic and novel information on the involvement of OT and AVP in autism with an investigation of blood plasma levels of these neuropeptides in 75 preadolescent and adolescent girls and boys ages 8–18: 40 with high-functioning ASD (19 girls, 21 boys) and 35 typically developing children (16 girls, 19 boys). We related neuropeptide levels to social, language, repetitive behavior, and internalizing symptom measures in these individuals. There were significant gender effects: Girls showed higher levels of OT while boys had significantly higher levels of AVP. There were no significant effects of diagnosis on OT or AVP. Higher OT values were associated with greater anxiety in all girls and with better pragmatic language in all boys and girls. AVP levels were positively associated with restricted and repetitive behaviors in girls with ASD but negatively (non-significantly) associated with these behaviors in boys with ASD. Our results challenge the prevailing view that plasma OT levels are lower in individuals with ASD and suggest there are distinct and sexually dimorphic mechanisms of action for OT and AVP underlying anxiety and repetitive behaviors. Lay Abstract Oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) are neuropeptides that are involved in affiliative and social behavior. Previous studies have shown that boys with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have lower levels of OT than boys without ASD, and treatment studies have found that intranasal infusions of OT increase social behaviors in mostly males with ASD. With this study, we provide basic and novel information on the involvement of OT and AVP in ASD with an investigation of blood plasma levels of these neuropeptides in 75 preadolescent and adolescent girls and boys ages 8–18: 40 with high-functioning ASD and 35 typically developing children. We related OT and AVP levels to social, language, repetitive behavior, and internalizing symptom measures in these individuals. Girls had higher levels of OT while boys had higher levels of AVP. There were no differences in OT or AVP levels between the ASD and typically developing groups. Higher OT values were associated with greater anxiety in all girls and with less impaired social language in all boys and girls. Higher levels of AVP were associated with greater restricted and repetitive behaviors in girls with ASD whereas lower levels of AVP levels were associated with lower levels of these behaviors in boys with ASD. Results challenge the prevailing view that OT levels are lower in individuals with ASD, and suggest there are distinct mechanisms of action for OT and AVP underlying ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Sex Differences and Associations With Symptoms

et al. 2013

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“…We included approximately 25% females in each group since this is the ratio in ASD, however, our gender matching was not perfect and the ratio of males to females was largest for the ASD group. Both biological (Bital, Lifshitz, Breznitz, & Booth, 2010) and behavioral (Tenebaum, Ford, & Alkhedairy, 2010) studies suggest there are gender differences in language with women showing relative strengths in the integration of information and provision of context for listeners. Thus, the greater male to female ratio in the ASD group versus the other disorder groups may have biased us towards finding greater differences in context related language problems than would have been present if the groups all had a gender ratio of 4:1.…”

Section: 0 Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From lumping to splitting and back again: Atypical social and language development in individuals with clinical-high-risk for psychosis, first episode schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorders

Solomon

Olsen

Niendam

et al. 2011

Schizophrenia Research

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Objective Individuals with autism and schizophrenia exhibit atypical language and social symptoms. The extent to which these symptoms are evident during development and in current functioning is unclear. Method Three groups of patients aged 11–20 diagnosed as clinical-high-risk for psychosis (CHR; n = 15), first episode psychosis (FEP; n = 16), and autism spectrum disorders (ASD; n = 20), plus typically developing individuals (TYP; n = 20) were compared on common autism parent-report questionnaires assessing social and language development and current functioning including the Social Communication Questionnaire, the Children’s Communication Checklist, and the Social Reciprocity Scale. Results All clinical groups demonstrated atypical social and language development, with social impairment highest in ASD. Twenty percent of participants with CHR and FEP met diagnostic criteria for ASD as assessed by parent-report. ASD exhibited greater current syntactic, and pragmatic language symptoms including delayed echolalia, pedantic speech, and deficits in appreciating irony and sarcasm. All clinical groups exhibited current deficits in social functioning. CHR and FE had similar and intermediate levels of functioning relative to ASD and TYP, with CHR generally scoring closer to TYP, providing construct validity for the CHR diagnostic label. Conclusions The results of this study suggest that ASDs, CHR, and FEP share common features of atypical neurodevelopment of language and social function. Evidence of impaired social reciprocity across both disorders and distinct language symptoms in ASDs provides important information for differential diagnosis and psychosis prevention, as well as leads for future investigations of comparative genetics and pathophysiology.

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“…For example, several studies have found a female advantage in vocabulary size (e.g. Bornstein & Haynes, 1998;Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991;Mylonas, Paramei, & MacDonald, 2014), and women are often reported as using a more emotional language than men (van Boven & Robinson, 2012), an effect which has also been found with children (Tenenbaum, Ford, & Alkhedairy, 2011). Potential links between reading and emotional competence might, therefore, be of particular importance for boys, who may benefit even more from activities that can lead to an increase their emotional vocabulary.…”

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confidence: 96%

Reading habits and emotional vocabulary in adolescents

Dylman

Blomqvist

Champoux-Larsson

2020

Educational Psychology

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Previous research has found that reading increases overall vocabulary size, and that reading fiction, specifically, is associated with higher levels of empathy and better perspective-taking skills. The current study investigated a potential link between reading habits and emotional vocabulary in particular, to assess whether the link between reading and empathy could be specifically related to emotion words. A total of 415 Swedish secondary and upper secondary school students were asked to generate words in various emotional categories, and to report their reading habits. Generally, females produced more words than males. For all participants, the largest amount of words was produced in the neutral, followed by positive, then the negative category. Crucially, the frequent readers produced more emotional words than the less frequent readers, suggesting that reading habits are associated with emotional vocabulary. We discuss the implications of these findings for the understanding of the link between reading and emotional competence.

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Telling stories: Gender differences in peers’ emotion talk and communication style

Cited by 22 publications

References 57 publications

Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Sex Differences and Associations With Symptoms

Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Sex Differences and Associations With Symptoms

From lumping to splitting and back again: Atypical social and language development in individuals with clinical-high-risk for psychosis, first episode schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorders

Reading habits and emotional vocabulary in adolescents

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