ASD - Individual Differences Explanation

Question 1

1 What is ToM?

Answer 1

The understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings, knowledge and perspectives that differ from ours.

Question 2

1 What did Simon Baron-Cohen argue?
What does it present?

Answer 2

ToM is impaired in those with ASD - not fully functioning
Itself as a reduced or delayed ability to recognise and understand the internal mental states of other people

Question 3

1 What is ‘mindblindness’?

Answer 3

The inability to understand the minds of others

Question 4

1 What skills does ToM develop from?

Answer 4

Skills which usually appear early in childhood development:
1. follow another persons line of sight
2. engage in pretend play
3. imitate other’s behaviour

Question 5

1 What is a key skill in ToM development?

Answer 5

Joint attention - when an adult draws a child’s attention to an object using gestures and line of sight.

Question 6

1 What did Scaife & Bruner (1975) find?

Answer 6

Neurotypical children show joint attention by around 14 months. this skill is often delayed or impaired in children with ASD. This delay causes a ToM deficit which can explain later problems with social communication in later years

Question 7

1 What is the key deficit in ToM for children with ASD

Answer 7

Ability to distinguish between physical objects and mental objects

Question 8

1 Supporting research (eyes task) for ToM?

Answer 8

Baron-Cohen (2001) - used ‘eyes task’ to assess ToM deficits.
Ppts with ASD were significantly worse at determining the emotions displayed than controls were

Question 9

1 Supporting research (Sally Anne task) for ToM?

Answer 9

Baron-Cohen (1985) - only 20% of the ASD correctly answered where Sally would look for her marble compared with 85% of the neurotypical children and 86% of the children with Downs syndrome

Question 10

1 Methodological issues for ToM?

Answer 10

Sally Anne task - relies on ability to understand language as there is a large amount of the ‘story’ the child must be told. Children with ASD may find this difficult

Question 11

1 Why is ToM a partial explanation?

Answer 11

Limited explanation for non-social features of ASD.

Question 12

1 Positive applications of ToM?

Answer 12

Developed strategies and techniques to help children with ASD to ‘mind read’
Joint attention training - adults engage children in tasks (pointing at objects, showing objects & jointly looking at objects)
Such training can have significant benefits on communication and social skills development for children with ASD

Question 13

2 What is central coherence?

Answer 13

Humans ability to gain overall meaning from a mass of different details

Question 14

2 Strong central coherence?

Answer 14

Able to identify the most relevant information and form a meaningful understanding of the entire conversation withoit dwelling on details

Question 15

2 Weak central coherence?

Answer 15

May remember very specific details of the conversation but be unable to summarise the content that was discussed

Question 16

2 What did Frith refer to?

Answer 16

Central coherence differences in the way we are able to perceive the world as local processing and global processing

Question 17

2 What is local processing?

Answer 17

Allows us to analyse the fine details and to examine the elements that make up a task or event in fine detail

Question 18

2 What is global processing?

Answer 18

Allows us to see how the details fit together to form the ‘bigger picture’

Question 19

2 What did Frith argue that those with ASD have?

Answer 19

Those with ASD have impaired global processing but may have enhanced local processing

Question 20

2 What did Frith (1989) say people with ASD are less likely to do?

Answer 20

People with ASD are less likely to pay attention to the broader context of a task, conversation, object or event

Question 21

2 Supporting research (tiles) for weak central coherence?

Answer 21

Shah & Frith (1993) - those with ASD performed better on broken up ‘tiles’ task than those in other two groups suggesting a preference for local processing.
Second experiment - patterns were already broken up so local processing was not needed - did no better than other groups

Question 22

2 What does weak central coherence consider ASD in?

Answer 22

Considers ASD in positive and optimistic light - doesnt claim that a damaging cognitive deficit is the cause of ASD
Local processing is a bias rather than a deficit - while it may be difficult to overcome, it can be

Question 23

2 Why is weak central coherence a partial explanation?

Answer 23

Doesnt explain how preference for local processing is created - unclear what parts of the brain might be involved in development of this bias