20000
Temperament Similarities and Differences: A Comparison of Factor Structures from the Behavioral Style Questionnaire in Children with ASD, DD and Typical Development
Despite growing interest in the relationship between temperament and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), no studies have investigated the factor structure of temperament in ASD. Lower internal reliability for temperament scales in children with ASD compared to typical children in some studies indicates that differential covariance patterns may exist across groups.
Objectives:
Data from the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), the largest case-control study to date of the etiologic factors contributing to the development of ASD, to examine the factor structure of temperament (Behavioral Style Questionnaire; BSQ) in children with ASD relative to Typically Developing children (TYP) and children with other Developmental Disabilities (DD).
Methods:
Authors conducted three Ordinary Least Squares Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) with oblique rotation on polychoric correlation matrices of the 100 item BSQ for TYP (N = 826), ASD (N = 652), and DD groups (N = 657). To determine the number of factors, authors considered scree breaks, Kaiser’s criterion, and parallel analysis. Lower item communality threshold for factor inclusion was .40 and items were allowed to cross-load (communalities >= .32).
Results:
For TYP and ASD, authors chose an 8 factor solution (34% of variance in the TYP group, 34% for ASD); for DD, authors chose a 7 factor solution (33% of variance). For TYP, the first factor (6% of variance) was labeled Inattention/Activity, the second (5% variance) was Adaptability, the third was Neuroticism (5% of variance), the fourth was Distractibility (4% variance), the fifth was Shyness (4% variance), the sixth was Persistence (4% variance), the seventh was Positive Affect/Activity (4% variance), and the eighth was Rhythmicity (3% variance). For ASD, the first factor (5% of variance) was Persistence, the second (5% variance) was Neuroticism, the third (5% of variance) was Activity (5% variance), the fourth was Adaptability (5% variance), the fifth was Distractibility (5% variance), the sixth was Shyness (3% variance), the seventh was Rhythmicity (3% variance), and the eighth was Sensory Sensitivity. For DD, the first factor (6% of variance) was Inattention/Activity, the second (5% variance) was Adaptability, the third was Distractibility (5% of variance), the fourth was Neuroticism (4% variance), the fifth was Rhythmicity (4% variance), the sixth was Shyness (4% variance), the seventh was Learning/Attention (4% variance).
Conclusions:
No group’s factor structure replicated the BSQ’s purported 9 factors and many BSQ items did not load strongly on any factor. All groups had Adaptability, Neuroticism, Distractibility, Shyness, and Rhythmicity factors; both TYP and ASD had a Persistence factor; both TYP and DD had an Inattention/Activity factor. TYP had a unique Positive Affect/Activity factor, ASD had a unique Activity and a Sensory Sensitivity factor, and DD had a unique Learning/Attention factor. Results indicate that children with ASD and DD display unique temperament factors relevant to features associated with their conditions (respectively, Sensory Sensitivity and Learning/Attention). Future research should determine whether the common temperament factors identified here display measurement invariance across TYP, ASD, and DD groups so that researchers can make accurate inferences when comparing temperament factors between TYP, ASD and DD populations.