37 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
37 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Study highlight - Communication patterns in autistic adults
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topics:
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- mhealth
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contributors:
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- mehran turna
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- juergen dukart
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- simon eickhoff
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- leonhard schilbach
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- mamaka narava
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software:
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- jtrack
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---
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{{< lead >}}
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A recent study using JTrack Social was able to shed light on communication differences between autistic adults and neurotypical controls.
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{{< /lead >}}
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The fact that autistic individuals prefer text-based rather than speech-based forms of communication is often stated by patients or caregivers on the basis of subjective self-reports.
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In everyday diagnostic practice, however, such behavior is difficult to observe - the environment is far removed from what patients are used to and doctors have little time for clinical observations.
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A smartphone-based study approach that can record real behavior over a longer period of time without bias is therefore particularly suitable here.
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Using software from the ABCD-J ecosystem, a study has now shown that autistic adults communicate more text-based than a neurotypical control group.
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For the study, the smartphone use of autistic adults and a control group was passively recorded over 4 months using JTrack Social.
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Information on which apps were used - transmitted pseudo-anonymized and securely encrypted - was used to draw conclusions about communication preferences.
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Communication apps were categorized as verbal (such as phone calls), written (such as SMS or email) or mixed communication (such as WhatsApp, which allows text and voice-based communication).
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Group comparisons were then drawn up based on the time spent using the apps in individual categories.
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Although groups of people spent a similar amount of time using communication apps, autistic adults communicated statistically significantly more often using text-based communication - on average 2.3 times longer than neurotypical individuals.
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Source: [Turna et al., 2025; www.nature.com/articles/s41746-025-01545-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-025-01545-x)
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