Neurodivergence and autism Flashcards
what is a developmental difference
Condition manifesting before adulthood that alters typical development
how may developmental conditions manifest
Can manifest in delay or deficit or difference
what can cause developmental conditions
chromosomal abnormalities
prenatal factors e.g. oxygen deprivation
unknown combinations
what did early descriptions of autism involve
Low IQ
“autistic aloneness” – inability relate to others
“desire for sameness” – upset by changes
what is the triad of impairments
A - impairments in social interaction
B- impairments in communication
C - restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour
what must people meet to be diagnosed in DSM-V
Must meet criteria A,B,C,D
what is an islet of ability
task ability equivalent to or better than neurotypical people
diagnoses differences in gender
~3x more men/boys diagnosed than women/girls
why may there be differences in diagnosis and gender
different presentation/outdated or biased view of autism
evidence of autism as hereditary
Some evidence from twin and family studies
neurological explanation of Autism
some evidence of structural differences
what is a problem with diagnosis
defined using behavioural criteria
some appear early but some appear later in life
why has there been an increase in numbers recently
better diagnostic material and understanding of impairments
three traditional theories of autism
Executive Functioning
Weak Central Coherence
Theory of Mind Deficit
what is executive functioning
an umbrella term -planning, organising, inhibition, impulse control, sustaining attention
what does central coherence refer to
TD people have tendency to process incoming info globally
why does ToM deficits lead to social impairments
Limits effective social understanding
Makes it difficult to interpret behaviour of others
Sally-Anne false belief task in autistic children
80% of TD & DS solved
Only 20% of autistic group
Baron-Cohen et al findings
Autistic children could order & explain mechanical and behavioural stories
difficulty ordering mentalistic stories
what are limitations of ToM hypothesis
Not all children fail these tasks
some autistic children can understand second order beliefs
what is the strange stories task
Participants read short story and are asked why a character say something they don’t mean literally (white lie, pretend, joking, idioms):
findings of strange stories task
Even those who passed 2nd order ToM tasks were impaired
how did Baron-Cohen test the importance of eyes in displaying emotion
Designed to address ToM abilities beyond those of a 6-yr-old
Choose between correct emotion and “foil”
findings of inferring mental states from eyes
Autistic group significantly impaired compared to TD group and Tourette Syndrome group
How does tom theory fail for specificity
Many non-autistic individuals fail these tasks
not all autistic children fail these tasks
what may be a factor in why some pass and others do not
rely heavily on spoken language - vocabulary is highest predictor of performance on the task
which studies have been failed to replicate
Baron-Cohen et al
Strange stories
Sally-anne tasks
why does ToM fail convergent validity and what does this suggest
Performance on many ToM tasks isn’t correlated
may not be assessing the same constructs
what is the double empathy problem
Autistic and non-autistic people have different social communication styles
Breakdown in mutual understanding
Sheppard et al procedure
Autistic and Non-autistic people filmed during 4 conditions (joke, waiting, telling story, telling compliments)
Sheppard et al findings
Non-autistic participants better able to correctly identify condition for other non-autistics (in all except ‘joke’ condition)
what may explain the differences in Sheppard et al
-not due to differences in expression for emotion
-more difficulty in understanding and communicating
