Asperger syndrome in childhood – personality dimensions in adult life: temperament, character and outcome trajectories

BACKGROUND: Temperament and character have been shown to be important factors in understanding psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorder. Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have repeatedly been shown to have a distinct temperament and character, but this has not been evaluated in relation to psychiatric comorbidity and ASD diagnostic stability. AIMS: To examine temperament and character in males that were diagnosed with ASD in childhood and followed prospectively over almost two decades. METHOD: Temperament and character were assessed in 40 adult males with a childhood diagnosis of ASD. Results were analysed by the stability of ASD diagnosis over time and current psychiatric comorbidity. RESULTS: Three distinct temperament and character profiles emerged from the data. Those no longer meeting criteria for ASD had high reward dependence while those with a stable ASD diagnosis and psychiatric comorbidity showed elevated harm avoidance and low self-directedness and cooperativeness. Finally, those with a stable ASD and no comorbidity showed low novelty seeking and somewhat elevated harm avoidance. CONCLUSIONS: Temperament and character are important factors correlated with long-term diagnostic stability and psychiatric comorbidity in males diagnosed with ASD in childhood. DECLARATION OF INTEREST: None. COPYRIGHT AND USAGE: © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2016. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.