lecture 4 Flashcards
what is the official term in the DSM-V for autism?
Autism Spectrum Disorder
what is Asperger’s Syndrome?
people are on the autism spectrum, but do not have language delay or learning disability
what is autism?
combination of impaired social communication, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour
what does the DSM-5 suggest are the standard criteria to diagnose autism?
persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts
restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour/interests/activities
symptoms are present during the early developmental period
symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in areas of functioning
not better explained by intellectual disability or developmental delay
how do autistic individuals demonstrate persistent deficits in social communication and interaction?
deficits in social-emotional reciprocity
deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction
deficits in developing/maintaining/understanding relationships
how do autistic individuals demonstrate restricted, repetitive patterns?
reptitive movements/use of objects/use of speech
need routine
fixated interests of abnormal intensity
hyper/hypo reactivity to sensory input
what are the three main cognitive theories of autism?
theory of mind
executive dysfunction
weak central coherence
what is a summary of theory of mind for autism?
failure to acknowledge that others have their own thoughts and beliefs
what is a summary of executive dysfunction for auitsm?
deficits in inhibition/planning/executive memory
what is a summary of weak central coherence for autism?
preference for local details over the global whole or context
how did Baron-Cohen et al (1985) investigate theory of mind for autism?
used the Sally Ann task
Sally puts her ball in the basket, Sally goes away, Anne moves the ball to her box, where will Sally look for her ball?
only 20% of autistic individuals could answer this correctly
how did Klin et al (2000) investigate theory of mind in autistic individuals?
based on the inactive mind hypothesis- according to this, early in development autistic children are not tuned to the social environment which affects their learning
showed geometric shapes acting out a social interchange-autistic individuals described it in terms of physical actions rather than an abstract interpretation
how did Perner et al (1989) investigate theory of mind in autistic individuals?
unexpected object task
pencils in a smarties tube
autistic children experienced difficulties related to acknowledging false beliefs
how did Sparrevohn and Howie criticise theory of mind research in autistic individuals?
autistic children with higher verbal mental ages are more likely to pass theory of mind tasks
how did Happe (1995) criticise theory of mind research in autistic individuals?
meta analysis
relationship between a child’s verbal mental age and passing false belief tasks
verbal mental age of 12 are able to pass
how did Baron-Cohen (1989) criticise theory of mind research in autistic individuals?
autistic people pass first order false belief tasks (but not second order false belief tasks)
theory of mind problem was a delay rather than a deficit
not universal
are theory of mind struggles unique to autistic individuals?
no- children with visual and hearing impairments show difficulties with false belief
how did Ozonoff et al (1991) describe executive control in autistic individuals?
accounts for social and non social symptoms
executive control is the ability to maintain an appropriate problem solving method for the attainment of a future goal
how does the Tower of Hanoi investigate executive control?
planning task
people have to move rings one at a time in the minimum number of moves
autistic children acted impulsively and could not plan several moves ahead
how does the Wisconsin Card Sort investigate executive control?
set of card which you can sort according to different categories
this category rule is then changed
autistic children were unable to shift attentional focus, and continued to sort according to the original system
how can the windows task be used to assess executive control?
if a child points to where the chocolate is, the experimenter eats it
then transfer to a task where you can now see where the chocolate is
children still pointed here, suggesting they find it difficult to resist pointing to the attentional focus
how did Sodian and Frith (1992) investigate executive control?
burglar problem
either locked the box (executive function ability) or deceived them (demonstrates false belief)
autistic children were able to lock the box, but struggled with deception
difficulty with theory of mind, but not inhibitory control
how did Frith (2003) explain weak central coherence?
attempted to explain both social and non social symptoms
biased to local over global processing
how does language processing (Snowling and Frith, 1986) demonstrate weak central coherence?
people with autism fail to use context when processing ambiguous homographs
take language use as literal
struggle to understand sarcasm and irony
how do perceptual tasks demonstrate weak central coherence?
embedded figures test
try to find the hidden figure in the bigger object
autistic people were faster which was due to viewing the picture in parts rather than as a whole
what is the issue with using weak central coherence to explain autism?
inconsistent evidence- autistic individuals are not found to be less susceptible to visual illusions
theory is not universal or unique to autistic individuals
what are the conclusions from cognitive explanations of autism?
autism cannot be explained by a single deficit
autism is the result of a complex interplay between multiple factors
several functional neural pathways relay to neurocognitive/social functions which are impaired in autism
what is the difference between social and medical models of autism?
medical model denotes the problem as being within the individual
social model- society should adapt to the individual
who proposed the double empathy model?
Milton, 2012
what is the double empathy model?
autistic to autistic interactions are more efficient than autistic-non autistic interactions
who investigated the diffusion chain?
Crompton et al, 2019
what was investigated in the diffusion chain?
whether autistic peer-to-peer information transfer was more efficient than mixed autistic-non autistic
how was the diffusion chain investigated?
people passed on a message
wanted to see how accurate it is by the end
3 chains: autistic chain/non autistic chain/mixed chain
matched on variables
what were the results for the diffusion chain?
autistic peer-peer information transfer was more efficient than the mixed chain
autistic chain was better than the neurotypical chain
who investigated how autistic people are perceived?
Sasson et al, 2017
what did Sasson find out about how autistic people are perceived?
autistic and non autistic adults were recorded whilst interacting with someone
people didn’t know who was autistic and who wasn’t
nonautistic people tended to rate autistic people less socially favourably- not due to speech content but other audio/visual cues
how did disclosing the autism diagnosis impact how autistic people were perceived in Sasson et al’s study?
disclosing the autism diagnosis and knowledge of autism increased favourability ratings of autistic people
what is the relationship between autistic people and friendships?
DSM-V diagnostic criteria includes deficits in forming stable, long-lasting relationships
however, individuals with similar levels of autistic traits often report higher friendship quality
what is Klin’s intervention approach to autism?
providing learning opportunities to autistic children early in development may improve social/communication skills
what is the transporter intervention for autism?
children were shown videos of trains with real emotion faces
acted out social situations
looked at their emotion vocabulary and recognition before and after intervention
what is the testing efficacy for autism interventions?
asked to match the correct emotion face to the situation
what happened in autism acceptance training?
238 non autistic adults completed either this training/general mental health training/no training
tested attitudes towards autism explicitly and implicitly
non autistic adults in the autism acceptance training condition reported more positive perceptions of autistic adults, fewer misconceptions, higher expectations of autistic abilities, and greater social interest
had no effect on implicit biases
