Associations between autism and self-reported dimensions of interoception

Journal article

Despite a wealth of research on autism and interoception, there is not a clear consensus about which dimensions of interoception (if any) are related to autism. This study explored whether self-reported interoceptive accuracy, attention and evaluation are related to autism diagnosis and autistic traits. We analysed questionnaire responses from 519 participants, including 232 autistic participants. We found that people with an autism diagnosis had more negative interpretations of their bodily signals than people without an autism diagnosis, and increasing autistic traits in a general population sample were associated with higher interoceptive attention, lower interoceptive accuracy, and higher negative interoceptive evaluation. Our findings suggest that interoceptive evaluation should be a priority for future research.

Authors: Adams, K; Catmur, C; Bird, G

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Autism
• Publication date: 2026-04-06
• Acceptance date: 2026-03-05
• DOI: 10.1177/13623613261434431
• EISSN: 1461-7005
• ISSN: 1362-3613
• Language: English
• Keywords: mental health; Interoception; interoceptive accuracy; interoceptive evaluation; interoceptive attention