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

Background Temperamentand 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 temperamentand character, but this has not been evaluated in relation to psychiatric comorbidityand ASDdiagnostic stability. Aims To examine temperamentand character in males that were diagnosed with ASDin childhood and followed prospectively over almost two decades. Method Temperamentand character were assessed in 40 adult males with a childhood diagnosis of ASD. Results were analysed by the stability of ASDdiagnosis over time and current psychiatric comorbidity. Results Three distinct temperamentand character profiles emerged from the data. Those no longer meeting criteria for ASDhad high reward dependencewhile those with a stable ASDdiagnosis and psychiatric comorbidityshowed elevated harm avoidanceand low self-directednessand cooperativeness. Finally, those with a stable ASDand no comorbidityshowed low novelty seekingand somewhat elevated harm avoidance. Conclusions Temperamentand character are important factors correlated with long-term diagnostic stability and psychiatric comorbidityin males diagnosed with ASDin 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.