Screening for autism spectrum disorders and an examination of social cognition in prisoners
View/ Open
Robinson2015.doc (2.204Mb)
Date
04/07/2015Author
Robinson, Louise
Metadata
Abstract
Prisoners have high rates of physical and mental morbidity and of re-offending.
There have been concerns that autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may be overrepresented
and under-diagnosed in this population.
The aims of this study were to examine the effectiveness of an instrument which was
developed to screen for ASDs in prisons and to establish whether male Scottish
prisoners differ from community controls with respect to facial emotion recognition,
as measured by behavioural testing, and differ on a neural basis while performing
complex social judgements, as measured using functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI). A total of 2458 prisoners (approximately 40% of the convicted
prison population) were examined using the screening tool, of whom a further 127
were interviewed in depth and were assessed for facial emotion recognition ability.
FMRI was used to examine haemodynamic changes in a small sample of liberated
prisoners (9) during a social judgement (approachability) versus control (gender
judgments) task.
The screening tool had poor sensitivity (28.6%) and specificity (75.6%) and was not
effective or useful in screening for ASDs in this population. Significant deficits in
negative facial emotion recognition were found in the prisoner group in comparison
with age- and sex-matched community controls. Region of interest analysis of fMRI
data in the bilateral amygdala revealed significantly greater activation in the left
amygdala in ex-prisoners versus controls during the social judgement task. The
identification of these abnormalities in facial emotion recognition and social
judgement are in keeping with current literature on antisocial populations. They may
offer the opportunity for development of interventions aimed at reducing re-offending
in the future.