Autism Flashcards
How did early theorists conceptualize autism?
As feeblemindedness
What are two pieces of evidence that autism may have a biological basis (Rimland’s and Folstein and Rutter)?
The relationship between seizure disorders and autistic individuals (Brain disorder, Rimland)
The concordance rates between fraternal/identical twins (heritability, Folstein & Rutter)
disorders in the DSM-IV and the DSM-V? How were other disorders collapsed into one category?
The DSM-IV classifies autism/autistic spectrum disorders as pervasive developmental disorders. Criteria are: social impairments, communication deficits, and sterotyped interests and rigid/repetitive behavior
The DSM-V classifies autism/autistic spectrum disorders as autism spectrum disorders. Criteria include: persisten deficits in social communication, and restricted/repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.
What are the diagnostic symptoms of autism? What are the associated features?
Restricted communication and restricted/repetitive behavior
What do epidemiologists mean by incidence and prevalence?
the rate of the total number of new cases identified in a population at a given time (studied very little)
Why the increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism?
Greater public awareness, better case ascertainment, lower age at diagnosis, diagnostic substitution, and changes in diagnostic criterion
What is the current conceptualization of autism?
it’s a quantitative trait normally distributed amongst the population
Is Autism heterogeneous or homogeneous?
Heterogeneous
What are some different theoretical conceptualizations of the symptom profile?
the Theory of the Mind, weak central coherence (global vs. local processing styles), executive function (cognitive flexibility), and complex information processing (multiple cognitive deficit model)
