Table 2.

Overview of core DSM-5 autism spectrum disorder (ASD) criterion-level concepts for the Social Communication and Interaction (SCI) and Restricted and Repetitive Behavior and Interest (RRBI) Domains

A1: Deficits in social emotional reciprocity	A2: Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors	A3: Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships
Involves the exchange of social behaviors (responding, initiating, and reciprocating with others)	Used to communicate affect, regulate social interactions, or supplement language	Involves an awareness of, interest in, and/or understanding (insight) of other people/relationships and playing with children
Impairments in: • Initiating social interactions • Responding to social interactions • Interacting with others (initiating or responding) given social opportunity • Conversing with others • Sharing enjoyment, interests, or objects • Imitating others • Cuddling with familiar persons • Reciprocating social interactions	Impairments in: • Using facial expressions (including smiles) • Using eye contact • Using gestures • Integrating verbal and nonverbal communication • Using other people to communicate • Having appropriate voice characteristics (e.g., intonation)	Impairments in: • Being aware of others • Being interested in others • Preferring to be with others • Differentiating adults and others, and self from others • Adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts • Understanding social conventions • Having an unusual quality of social overtures or responses • Playing with children

B1: Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects or speech	B2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior	B3. Highly restricted interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus	B4. Hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment
• Demonstrating motor stereotypies • Demonstrating repetitive use of objects • Demonstrating stereotyped or repetitive use of speech	• Insisting on sameness • Showing inflexible adherence to routines or restricted patterns of behavior • Having ritualized patterns of verbal behavior • Having rigid thinking patterns	• Having highly restricted interests or obsessions • Having unusual interests • Focusing on parts of objects	• Showing unusual and general sensory reactions or interests • Showing unusual and specific sensory reactions or interests (i.e., sound, smell, texture or touch, visual, vestibular, pain or temperature, or food-based reactions)