Everyday expressions of pain in children with and without autism spectrum disorder

• Ratings of everyday signs of pain were collected from parents of children with and without ASD.
• Children with and without ASD had similar parental ratings of everyday expressions of pain.
• Severity of ASD symptoms may impact the frequency of pain-related behaviors displayed by children.

BackgroundAnecdotal reports from parents suggest that their children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have diminished pain experiences and expressions. In contrast, objective measures of pain have been used to document typical and enhanced expressions of pain in response to noxious stimuli (e.g., blood draw) among children with autism. The purpose of this study was to compare non-biased parental ratings of pain among children with and without ASD.MethodAs an everyday measure of pain, parents completed The Non-Communicating Children’s Pain Checklist (NCCPC-R) across two time windows (i.e., 2 h and 1 week) for 31 children with ASD and 19 children without ASD.ResultsThere were no significant group differences in everyday expressions of pain between children with and without ASD. However, in general, increased autism symptomology severity was associated with decreased parental ratings of pain expressions.ConclusionThese results continue to support a framework where children with ASD may have typical pain sensitivity, however, their expressions of pain may differ based on where individuals lie on the autism spectrum.