Studies controlling for both alexithymia and autism have found that alexithymia, rather than autism, predict difficulties in facial, vocal and musical emotion recognition. It is important to learn about alexithymia as a subgroup of autism as it can explain emotional processing problems, emotional dysregulation, and the appearance of a lack of empathy.

For public defense professionals, understanding the intersection of ASD and alexithymia provides opportunities to explain these distinctions to the Court.