Sensory features are a frequently occurring and clinically impairing group of symptoms among individuals diagnosed with ASD. However, despite clinical significance, prominent heterogeneity in sensory features has stifled our understanding of this group of symptoms. The current study aimed to further our understanding of the heterogeneity in sensory features by utilising, for the first time in the literature, Factor Mixture Modelling (FMM) to systematically compare dimensional, categorical, and dimensional-categorical hybrid structures of sensory features in a large and well-characterised sample of individuals with ASD.
Structure of sensory features
Results demonstrated that a multidimensional, i.e. hybrid factor model yielded the most parsimonious representation of sensory features in ASD, specifically a three-subgroup/seven-factor structural model. According to this model, individuals with ASD can be stratified into three more homogenous sensory subgroups, while allowing for heterogeneity in the severity of sensory features within these groups along seven specific continuous factor scores/domains. This suggests that neither dimensional-only nor categorical-only structural models can account sufficiently for the broad heterogeneity in sensory features observed in individuals with ASD.
The sensory-based subgroups we identified, interpreted as ‘sensory severe’, ‘sensory moderate’ and ‘sensory low’ showed statistically significant differences (see large effect sizes in Table 3) in overall sensory symptom severity, as well as across specific sensory domains, and in particular in Movement Sensitivity. The derived subgroups were characterised by a severity gradient rather than showing qualitative differences in sensory features, in line with some previous studies (12, 17). The absence of specific sensory patterns across subgroups however contrasts with several other sensory-based subgrouping studies in ASD. For example, in a series of cluster analytic studies using the SSP in samples of children with ASD, Lane and colleagues (18, 19, 75, 76) identified four sensory subtypes: sensory adaptive, taste smell sensitive, postural inattentive, and generalized sensory difference. Similarly, in a study that utilised the Sensory Experiences Questionnaire (77), four sensory subgroups were identified two of which were mainly distinguished by a severity gradient (‘Mild’ and ‘Extreme-Mixed’) and two showing qualitative differences ('Sensitive-Distressed Subtype', 'Attenuated-Preoccupied', 16). A potential reason for these discrepancies may relate to the choice of analytical approaches. In FMM, variability in item scores is both modelled by categorical and continuous latent factors, while in cluster analysis and/or Latent Profile/Class Analysis (LPA, LCA), all variability between participants is assumed to be captured by categorical subgroups (39). This leads to LCA extracting more subgroups to account for inter-individual variability, while in FMM, fewer subgroups are required to explain variation and covariation among the test items by permitting within-group covariance structures (78). Our data supports this conclusion, as the four- to six-class LCA models were found to have a better fit to the data than the three-subgroup LCA model. Alternatively, the different nature of the samples studied may have also affected the findings. More specifically, previous studies by Lane et al. and Ausderau focused on toddlers and younger children, while the sample used for our investigation spanned a wider age range from children to adults. It has been suggested that over time, the more specific patterns of sensory features identified in toddlers and younger children tend to restructure according to a sensory severity continuum (12). Although this suggestion is tentative and warrants further investigation using longitudinal designs, a study that utilised SSP in older children and adolescents has, similarly to our study, identified three subgroups that differed in terms of overall severity of sensory features.
Association with clinical characteristics of sensory subgroups
The sensory subgroups showed statistically significant differences in their associations with the severity of core and co-occurring symptoms, and level of adaptive functioning after accounting for the potential confounding effects of age and IQ. This provides suggestive support for the potential clinical utility of the identified three subgroups. More specifically, participants in the severe compared to the low sensory group had more severe social-communicative symptoms, greater deficits in adaptive social functioning skills, more symptoms of inattention and more restricted and repetitive behaviours, in particular stereotyped, compulsive and ritualistic/sameness behaviours. Compared to the low sensory group, individuals in the moderate sensory group had significantly greater social communication difficulties, more ritualistic/sameness behaviours and greater symptoms of anxiety at higher, but not lower levels of risk (i.e. only when the probability of an anxiety disorder exceeded 70%).
These results are in line with findings from studies that utilised both variable- and person-centered approaches. For instance, in a sample of children with ASD aged between 6 and 10 years, Hilton et al. (10) found that higher severity of sensory features, measured by the full Sensory Profile, was associated with higher severity of social-communication symptoms, assessed by the SRS-2. In addition, a subtyping study by Ausderau et al. (79) found that two of the subgroups characterised by the highest severity of sensory problems showed the most impairments in the communication and socialisation domains of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-II. While the causal relationship between sensory features and social communication challenges in ASD is not established, it may be the case that sensory features may result in the individual withdrawing from social-communicative environments that are over-stimulating, thereby further restricting opportunities for social learning. Conversely, the link between restricted and repetitive behaviours, particularly stereotypes, compulsions, and rituals/sameness behaviours, and sensory features have been highlighted by several studies (7-9, 80), and RRBs may serve as a self-regulatory function in situations of high arousal (81). There is also increasing evidence on the association between atypical sensory features and anxiety (7, 11), including two sensory-based subtyping studies that have identified that sensory severe subgroups showed more severe anxiety symptoms in both toddlers (17) and older children and adolescents (12). Although the exact mechanisms underpinning the relationship between anxiety and atypical sensory features remain to be clarified, it has been suggested that due to heightened responses to sensory stimuli, individuals characterised by atypical sensory processing experience their environment as threatening and unpredictable, which in turn leads to increased levels of anxiety (7). It has to be noted however that the effect size differences between the sensory severe/moderate group and sensory mild group found in the current sample were low (d=.23 and d’=.09 respectively). A lack of significant difference in anxiety symptoms between the severe and low group in the current study may be a result of the limited sample size in the sensory severe group. In summary, the current findings highlight the importance of comprehensively investing these related phenotypes in future studies and stress the need for understanding causality.
Research and clinical implications
To better understand the complex issue of ASD heterogeneity, it will now be important to examine the three derived sensory subgroups across different research areas: (a) developmental trajectories and stability of sensory subgroups over time, (b) response to intervention, (c) behavioural and clinical factors that associate with subgroups, (d) neurobiological and genetic mechanisms related to subgroups.
For example, it is possible that individuals from the different sensory subgroups might follow different developmental trajectories, which could be helpful in determining prognosis and identifying developmental opportunities for targeted interventions. When implemented within longitudinal designs, subgroups with distinct sensory profiles can serve as indicators of later outcomes, not only in relation to the categorical diagnostic outcome status but also the presence of other clinical features. In this context, it will also be important to assess the stability of sensory subgroups over time. Individuals in these sensory subgroups may also respond differently to different treatment options. Finally, one could hypothesise that individuals from the same sensory subgroup may converge on similar etiological pathways and thus may respond more similarly to treatment approaches (82). In this context, it will be critical to identify biological and genetic markers that capture diversity in sensory features in ASD. Although it is clear that the timing and magnitude of responses to sensory inputs is different and can have detrimental effects in individuals with ASD, the genetic and neurobiological underpinnings are currently poorly understood. For example, based on currently available findings, it is unclear whether the atypical sensory features in ASD are a consequence of impairments in bottom-up (83) or top-down processing (84-86) or the impairments of both levels of processing (87). These inconsistencies can be attributed to the fact that previous studies have utilised small samples (N< 25) which most likely included individuals belonging to different sensory-based subgroups. The importance of pre-selecting individuals based on their sensory profiles is illustrated by a study conducted by Green, Rudie et al. (87) that showed that individuals with ASD with and without sensory hyper-sensitivity could be distinguished based on the profile of amygdala reactivity, and amygdala-orbitofrontal cortex coupling during the presentation of aversive sensory stimuli. However, although innovative, this study only considered sensory hypersensitivity rather than comprehensive sensory functioning profiles. Therefore, the identified subgroups have the potential to advance our understanding of the neurobiology of atypical sensory features in ASD and the next important step in this research programme is to characterise potential neurobiological and genetic differences among individuals belonging to distinct sensory-based subgroups that we have reported here.
Relating the sensory subgroups to typically developing (TD) data from both the normative SSP standardisation sample and a closely age-and IQ-matched TD comparison group recruited as part of the LEAP cohort suggested that subgroups differed in the level of clinical relevance of their sensory features. While the ‘sensory low’ group had reduced sensory features in comparison to the other subgroups, compared to the TD reference data, even this subgroup showed on average sensory features that indicate atypical functioning across most domains assessed by the SSP. Individuals in the ‘sensory severe’ and ‘sensory moderate’ group experienced significant difficulties across most sensory domains, as indicated by the high frequency of ‘Definite difference’ or ‘Probable difference’ classifications across sensory domains. For individuals in these groups, the severity of sensory features experienced are likely functionally limiting (26) and indicate a clinical concern. In fact, participants classified in these clusters meet criteria for clinical cases of Sensory Processing Disorder as described by Lane et al. (18). Thus, if validated in future studies, these subtypes may offer a means during diagnostic evaluation to identify those individuals with clinically relevant levels of sensory features that require additional support and potentially benefit most from sensory-based therapies.
Limitations
Several limitations of the study have to be noted. First, the results were derived using a single parent-report measure of sensory features, the SSP, and are necessarily influenced by the item content of the measure. More specifically, despite their clinical importance, the SSP provides only limited coverage of sensory hypo-sensitivity and unusual sensory interest (22). It is therefore possible that by relying on the SSP, which does not align well with the DSM-5 subtypology of sensory symptoms, our study was not able to afford a more fine-grained characterisation of the sensory subgroups. Thus, while the severity gradient of the identified sensory subgroups speaks to their clinical utility, the reliance on a single measure and limited coverage of relevant sensory domains in DSM-5 warrants additional and complimentary work. Adding to this, by relying on a single parent-report measure, the results may reflect the measure-specific construct(s) rather than sensory structures in autistic individuals more generally. It will therefore be of crucial importance for future studies to utilise multiple measures that provide comprehensive sampling of all key sensory domains and drawing on different measurement formats (e.g. parent-report, self-report, observation) in order to derive content- and method-independent sensory-based subgroups (88). In this context, it will be critical to test in a confirmatory setting (i.e. in a hypothesis-driven manner) the predictive utility of the present results in a larger and independent ASD sample.
Second, although identified subgroups were associated with several key symptom and functional domains, therefore suggesting potential clinical utility, it is important to highlight that due to the cross-sectional design of the study these findings are necessarily preliminary. It will be important to further explore the predictive validity of the identified subgroups within a longitudinal study. As additional data on this longitudinal sample becomes available, we will evaluate these questions in more detail. Third, the FMM imposes a common factor structure in each subgroup and thus does not allow to test for different factor structures in different latent subgroups (e.g. testing for measurement invariance across subgroups). The size of the current sample, although being larger than in most previous studies, did not allow us to address this question.