Self-perception of children with autism spectrum disorders

We aimed to evaluate self-perceived competence and self-esteem of primary school children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Japan and compare to those of children with other chronic physical diseases and healthy controls.

Data were collected from 227 children: ASD (N.=91), nephrotic syndrome (NS) (N.=52) and asthma (N.=84), using Children's Perceived Competence Scale (CPCS) in 2012-2014. CPCS measures perceived competence in cognitive, social and physical domains, and a general self-worth domain as self-esteem.

Scores in the social domain of the ASD group were lower than those of all other groups after adjusting for school age grades and gender. Scores of the ASD group negatively correlated with psychosomatic symptoms in all domains and IQ in the physical domain.

These findings are the first data set in Japan on self-perceived competence and self-esteem in primary school children with ASD. Those results were comparable to previous researches in adolescents with ASD. Low social domain scores in the ASD group indicate the CPCS may be one of the useful tools to evaluate difficulty in social competence from the children's point of view. Correlations between CPCS scores and psychosomatic symptoms in the ASD group suggest development of psychosomatic symptoms may be addressed early by attention to low scores, especially in general self-worth.