The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults

Justin H G Williams; Isobel M Cameron

doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3244-8

The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults

Justin H G Williams, Isobel M Cameron

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Abstract

Impaired motor cognition may underpin empathy problems in autism. The actions and feelings questionnaire (AFQ), designed to examine individual differences in motor cognition, was completed fully by 1391 adults, of whom 326 reported a diagnosis of an autism spectrum condition (ASC). A confirmatory factor analysis supported a 3 factor model. The AFQ total and ‘feelings’ subscale scores correlated highly with the EQ and ROC curves were similar. Our findings suggest that individual differences in empathic traits are heavily accounted for by variance in mechanisms that serve sensorimotor learning (motor cognition) in relation to emotional states. The AFQ is a self-report tool that provides a valid indicator of autism status in adult populations.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3418-3430
Number of pages	13
Journal	Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Volume	47
Issue number	11
Early online date	28 Jul 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3244-8
Publication status	Published - Nov 2017

Keywords

autism
empathy
motor cognition
sensorimotor
questionnaire
confirmatory factor analysis

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10.1007/s10803-017-3244-8Licence: CC BY

The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Final published version, 994 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults",

abstract = "Impaired motor cognition may underpin empathy problems in autism. The actions and feelings questionnaire (AFQ), designed to examine individual differences in motor cognition, was completed fully by 1391 adults, of whom 326 reported a diagnosis of an autism spectrum condition (ASC). A confirmatory factor analysis supported a 3 factor model. The AFQ total and {\textquoteleft}feelings{\textquoteright} subscale scores correlated highly with the EQ and ROC curves were similar. Our findings suggest that individual differences in empathic traits are heavily accounted for by variance in mechanisms that serve sensorimotor learning (motor cognition) in relation to emotional states. The AFQ is a self-report tool that provides a valid indicator of autism status in adult populations.",

keywords = "autism, empathy, motor cognition, sensorimotor, questionnaire, confirmatory factor analysis",

author = "Williams, {Justin H G} and Cameron, {Isobel M}",

note = "Open access via Springer Compact Agreement We are grateful to Simon Baron-Cohen and Paula Smith of the Cambridge Autism Centre for the use of the ARC database in distributing the questionnaire, to all participants for completing it, to Eilidh Farquar for special efforts in distributing the link and to Gemma Matthews for advice on using AMOS 23. JHGW is supported by the Northwood Trust.",

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AB - Impaired motor cognition may underpin empathy problems in autism. The actions and feelings questionnaire (AFQ), designed to examine individual differences in motor cognition, was completed fully by 1391 adults, of whom 326 reported a diagnosis of an autism spectrum condition (ASC). A confirmatory factor analysis supported a 3 factor model. The AFQ total and ‘feelings’ subscale scores correlated highly with the EQ and ROC curves were similar. Our findings suggest that individual differences in empathic traits are heavily accounted for by variance in mechanisms that serve sensorimotor learning (motor cognition) in relation to emotional states. The AFQ is a self-report tool that provides a valid indicator of autism status in adult populations.

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The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults

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