lecture 5 - play and autism Flashcards
Autism spectrum condition
Lifelong, neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around
them.
diagnosis pattern of autism
Diagnosis: 1 in 36 (previously 1 in 100), more males than females.
- But female diagnoses increasing (differing characteristics; male
bias in autism research).
is it clear what autsim is caused by
It is still not clear what causes Autism or if
there even is a cause:
- genetics
- environment (eg older parent age,
pregnancy complications)
- gene <> environment interactions
what kind of spectrum should we consider autism on
-a circular type spectrum, is able to better respresent the scale
-it shows how some people have more of certian abilities etc
autism terminology
Identity-first most
preferred»_space; “Autistic”
Less preferred»_space;
person “with autism’’
lots of debate on this, better to ak them
look at ‘do say’ and ‘dont say’
charecetrsitcis in autism
Sensory processing differences (vision, sound, touch, taste,
smell).
-Hypersensitivity > Stress,
anxiety, physical pain
Obsession, repetitive behaviours,
routines.
-Source of enjoyment. But
limits other activities. Resistance to
change
Differences organizing, sequencing, and prioritizing activities.
- Processing information, predicting consequences of actions, concept of time, detail-focused
Differences in Social Behaviour,
Verbal and Nonverbal Communication, and Imagination
Behavior. Self-injury, physical risks to others
Autism diagnostic tools
- DISCO (Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders)
- ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule)
- ADI-R (Autism Diagnostic Interview - Revised)
- Indian Scale for Assessment of Autism (ISAA)
Play & Autism
How is play different among younger autistic children?
- Object organisation.
- Preference to play alone.
- Repetitive, seemingly purposeless to (non-autistic)
others but not to the child. - Don’t abide by typical rules of shared play.
- Less symbolic play
this is not true among all autistic children
Play & Autism: role of Imitation
-the 2 functions
Imitation emerges early and serves 2 (related) functions:
(1) a learning mechanism through which infants gain new skills and knowledge about the world;
(2) a social function through which they engage in social and emotional exchanges with others.
The ability to imitate functional and symbolic actions is related to the development of play skills.
play and autsim , the role of imitation
- Autistic children show differences in frequency and nature of
imitation skills. - Actions on objects; Manual and posture / body movements; Facial
imitation (eg expression) - Reduced visual attention to social (and non-social) things.
- Preference for objects vs faces.
- Concerns that early imitation differences negatively affect social
interactions with others, and thus social learning opportunities. - However, mixed evidence for imitation differences among autistic
children. - Type of task; autism characteristics (diverse spectrum), age of participants; sensory effects of objects used
Lack of pretend / symbolic play is a key ______ _______ ______ of autism in childhood.
clinical assesment feature
Pretend play promotes cognitive, social, language, and emotional development.
pretend play and autism
-autistic children prefer
Functional > Pretend play
* Tendency for literal and rigid use of object functions.
- Symbolic/pretend play involves non-literal actions and
beliefs (also elements of imitation).
- In more structured and directed play with objects, autistic children do produce different pretend acts
with the same object/toy. - Instead autistic children show reduced complexity, creativity, flexibility of pretend play. Need more external facilitation.
what are two theoretical viewpoints for autism
(1) Social Cognition Deficit
(2) Social Motivation Theory
Social Cognition Deficit theory
- Generation of ‘meta representations’ important in
pretend play. - Understanding different thoughts and feelings releases child from original representation to create a new one > Theory of Mind (ToM).
(lack this?) - But research remains unclear on the exact role and contribution of ToM role within pretend play.
- Criticisms of joint attention and traditional false belief tasks, measures too crude (Lin et al., 2017).
Social Cognition Deficit
The role of Theory of Mind
Lin et al (2017) used improved methodologies
ToM Task Battery (TOMTB): emotion recognition, desire-based emotion, seeing leads to knowing, line of sight, perception-based action, standard false belief, belief- and reality-based emotion and second order emotion, message-desire
discrepancy, and second-order false belief. Appropriate for verbal and nonverbal autistic children.
Child Initiated Pretend Play Assessment (ChIPPA): child’s ability to self-initiate and sustain
pretend play over a period of 30 min.
- Show that ToM positively predicts the elaborateness of
pretend play. - Conclude that ToM predicts ‘quality’ and not quantity of
pretend play in autistic children
social cognition deficit
-do autistic children lack understanding of pretend play or is it a problem with producing the play?
- But evidence that autistic children can understand pretend play that they observe in others. Jarrold (2003)
so do they have a defeict in tehory of mind or?…
So the difference may lie in the production of pretend play rather than the ability to understand non-literal behaviours in others. A preference not a deficit?
social motivation theory
Non-autistic children motivated by social feedback.
- Eye contact and shared
attention/experience can be socially
rewarding (Schilbach et al., 2010).
Autistic children can find sensory
feedback more rewarding and may
imitate more if that is involved
social mlotivation theory and pretend play in autistic children
- Autistic children may have intact ability to pretend,
but do not translate this into action. - Reduced interest and reluctance to engage in
pretend play. - It is a personal choice rather than a ‘deficit’.
what are the 3 mainfestations of social interest
Social Orienting: things with
social importance often
receive prioritised attention
seeking and liking ; social intereactions can be rewarding, Suggested less so in autistic children
social maintenance: Desire to maintain and enhance relationships
manifestations of social interest
-social orienting
Social Orienting: things with
social importance often
receive prioritised attention.
Core diagnostic criteria for autism in babies and toddlers include infrequent orienting to own name, reduced eye contact, engage less with other people
manifestations of social interest
-seeking and liking
Seeking & Liking: Social
interactions can be rewarding. Suggested less so in autistic individuals.
- Less spontaneous helping and collaborative behaviours.
- Fewer friends but not ‘lonely’.
- Fewer initiations and bids for joint attention (eg
declarative pointing). - Social anhedonia in autistic adolescents (lack of feelings
of pleasure in some social interactions and behaviours).
manifestations of social interest
- social maintenance
Social Maintenance: Desire
to maintain and enhance
relationships.
- Fewer spontaneous greetings or goodbyes, less small
talk. - Less strategic control of emotions or behaviours with
others. But see also ‘masking’ (highly frequent behaviour
adaptation to blend in – strategic control)
autistic play is appropriate
-there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong about these just because they don’t fit the neurotypical standrad
what is the double empathy problem
Simply put, the theory of the double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathise with each other. This is likely to be exacerbated through differences in language use and comprehension.
Reciprocal difficulties in
understanding that can occur
between people who hold different
norms and expectations of each
other and have different
communication styles
“This account assumes that some (not necessarily all) autistic
people yearn to be included, to be productive and to be useful. It
thus directly opposes accounts that view autism as an extreme case
of diminished social motivation.’’
