Atypical Development Flashcards
why is looking at Atypical development important?
- improves understanding of how difficulties in early life impact an individual
- find methods that improve life
what is the theory of mind and demonstrate
ability to understand others and our own mental states
Baron-Cohen et al (1986)
Sally-Anne Test - what does this mean for ToM?
- only 20% of autistic children passed
- 90% of syndrome passed
ToM is impaired in autism
Leslie (1987) - Meta-representations and ToM
autistic children fail to produce multiple representations during pretend play.
e.g., ‘pretend this banana is a phone
e.g., sally thinks the ball is in the basket
= child fails to put real object on hold = failed meta-representation
- who talks about false belief - what test
- Meta-representation & pretend play
- Joint Attention - what studies are these
- Baron-Cohen et al 1985: salle-Anne Test
- Leslie
- Curcio, 1978 & Leeam et al, 2000
what is joint attention
when one individual purposefully coordinates his or her attention with another person’s
what is different between normal individuals and people with autism - joint attention
it is impaired - doesn’t engage that a persons attention is else were
criticism of autistic research on ToM
developmental trajectory - doesn’t show the development of autism over a long period of time - at different ages.
what is an ‘autistic person’?
Autism spectrum Disease (DSM V, 2013)
- Neurodiversity movement: ASD not disease/illness. IDENTITY
how is autism characterised?
on average X developmental condition score lower on Y
how is autism identified?
- deficit in social-emotional reciprocity
- deficit in non-verbal communicative behaviours
- deficit in developing, maintaining and understanding relationships
- restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities
MMR vaccine does not cause autism
what are the changes in autism as an individual develops?
- communication
- social & repetitive behaviour
= difficult to predict
stability of diagnosis - Helles, 2015
24-38% no longer meet criteria DSM V of autism at age 30
- because severity changes over time
the problem of heterogeneity & and differences in autism (Loth et al - 2022)
effects sizes between eye contact, emotion regulation and communication are small compared to differences in ToM.
example: emotional control has a effect size of 0.1 where as ToM is 1.05
how is effect size of different heterogeneity and autistic traits compared in the between autistic individuals
those components (emotional regulation, eye contact and communication) = only around 4% of autistic people have those problem due to low effect size
how prominent is ToM in autism? (effect size)
1.05 effect size - very prominent in autism
= ToM is more universal in autism rather than emotion regulation, communication and eye contact
degree of deficits in autism = outcome:
not all autistic individuals will have similar deficits however, ToM will most likely be more prominent in the majority of autism
critcism for stability of diagnosis
for the majority of autistic individual, they have little to no impairment
levy and taylor - 2009
50-60% of autistic individual leave education without qualification
50-60% do not live independently
only 5-10% have stable partners
high levels of MH problems
main psychological theories of autism
- ToM –> explains social and communication impairments
- Executive function –> explains repetitive behaviours
- Weak central coherence –> explains sensory issues
- Extreme male brain –> explains a combination all ideas mentioned above
executive function –>
responsible for the flexibility of thought and behaviour + related to skills like planning, selecting relevant information, working memory, inhibiting behaviour
- resemblance with front lobe damaged patients (Ozonoff et al, 1991) as EF occurs mainly in prefrontal cortex
theory explains repetitive and sensory behaviours well BUT does not account for communication difficulties –> does link to other developmental conditions like dyslexia, ADHD and DS
= doesn’t only explain autism
weak central coherence –>
“the tendency of the cognitive system to integrate incoming information into meaning representations” - Frith, 1989 - info into context
good for account for sensory issues that outline the DSMV however this theory explains sensory issues well is does not explain social difficulties and repetitive behaviours to some extent only
extreme male brain –>
autism is a form of extreme male brain - characterised but high systemising ability and low empathy - Baron Cohen, 2002
asperger, 1944 = already suggested that autism is am extreme form of “maleness”
attempts to explain both social and non-social impairment
criticsm for extreme for male brain
definitions are weak and vaget.
e.g., Baron Cohen states men better at chess and football as they are deterministic and finite
criticism - chess and football is neither
culture and executive function development
executive function development = highly influenced by culture
e.g. south koreans highly encouraged self control in classroom & home and 3 yr olds often given formal lessons (Chow & Tseng, 2002)
= lower executive function impairment
culture and weak central coherence
culture differences at dinner = US more likely to speak about individual effort of the day whilst Japanese individual are more likely to speak about group occurrences
criticism of methods for atypical development
snapshot methodology where not much information or development over time
high causality through genetics rather than culture for non-social (executive function and weak central coherence impairments)
