NP: Autism Spectrum Disorder

Question 1

asd behavioural disturbances in 2 domains;

Answer 1

1. deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts
2. restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities

Question 2

need to be present in the early development period, but may not become fully manifested until social demands exceed limited capacities

Answer 2

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Question 3

dsm 3 levels of severity

Answer 3

1. requiring support
2. requiring substantial support
3. requiring very substantial support

Question 4

asd is difficult to diagnose in adults because..

Answer 4

they learned social behaviour that masks their autistic symptomatology
+ sometimes there is comorbidity with other problems

Question 5

asd and psychotic symptoms?

Answer 5

ppl with asd are prone to psychotic symptoms if they experience increased levels of stress and sometimes have difficulty to distinguish fantasy and reality

Question 6

common features in asd

Answer 6

avoiding eye contact
voice monotomous or too loud/quiet
motor control is wooden
problems with structure
poor tom
hyper or hyposensitivity

Question 7

since 1970 there was a sharp increase in asd diagnoses

Answer 7

oke

Question 8

waarom increase in diagnoses?

Answer 8

• betere diagnostics
• expanded definitions
• increased complexity of society

Question 9

asd prevalence gender

Answer 9

4 mannen 1 vrouw

Question 10

head growth bij asd

Answer 10

children with asd show a lot of head growth in first 2 years,. after age 5 the brain volume increases less so that the difference in head omvang decreases. maar ook decrease in volume in corpus callosum (limited info sharing between hemispheres)

Question 11

wat is nog meer reduced bij asd

Answer 11

serotonin production en amygdala activation (maar: hyperactivation when looking into someones eyes!)
en mirror neuron system is anders

Question 12

extreme male brain hypothesis

Answer 12

The ‘extreme male brain’ theory posits that people with autism process the world through a ‘male’ lens and take an interest in stereotypically male topics, such how machines work or weather patterns. And they may have trouble with tasks that women are supposedly better at, such as grasping social cues.

dus more male systemizing and less female emphatising

Question 13

theory of mind

Answer 13

lijkt een delay te zijn, en niet perse een fundamenteel defect.
deficiency in spontaneous mentalizing (spontaneous encoding of socially relevant info and automatic processing of the mental state of others)

Question 14

central coherence

Answer 14

processing information in a fragmented way at a local level, looking at details instead of the big picture (but capable of global perception with cues)

Question 15

executive functions

Answer 15

problems in cognitive flexibility and spatial working memory

Question 16

dus welke 3 dingen afwijkend

Answer 16

theory of mind
central coherence
executive functions

Question 17

empathizing-systemizing theory

Answer 17

In addition to ToM, the capacity to empathise includes the ability to
understand another person’s mental state, as well as the ability to respond appropriately to their feelings and thoughts.

The concept of systemising is defined as the analysis and construction of systems. When systemising, people try to identify algorithms (patterns, or ‘if-then’ rules) of a certain system in order to subsequently predict how that system will behave.

Both social and non-social behaviour of asd can be explained by a discrepancy between empathy (weak) and the ability to analyse or construct systems (superior)

Question 18

endophenotypes

Answer 18

These are biological or neuropsychological markers that (1) are related to disease in the population, (2) are themselves hereditary, (3) can also be demonstrated if the disease is not manifested, (4) are present in families simultaneously with the disease, and (5) occur more often in the relatives of patients than in the general population

basically ik!!

Question 19

For example, Adolphs, Spezio, Parlier, & Piven (2008) found that some parents of children with autism look at eyes to a lesser extent when processing faces. Research into endophenotypes seems to provide a better method of understanding the relationship between genetic abnormalities and the symptoms of autism.

Answer 19

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Question 20

Currently neuropsychological assessment in AsD is particularly important for treatment-oriented diagnostics, which allows therapists to base their interventions on an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of individuals, as well as on their neuropsychological capacities and impairments,

Answer 20

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Question 21

However, officially the neuropsychological assessment does not contribute to the categorical classification (Schothorst et al., 2009), because the Dsm classification is based on behavioural symptoms, whereas neuropsychologists chart information processing. Yet in practice neuropsychologists are regularly involved in diagnostics because AsD is in essence considered to be a disorder of information processing. However, neuropsychologists are limited by the fact that only a fraction of the numerous experimental studies have found their way into clinical practice. There are hardly any nationally or internationally recognised tests or test batteries for Asp that
have been validated and standardised for clinical use, which means that
neuropsychologists must form a picture of cognitive characteristics based on a collection of mainly experimental tasks. In addition, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is the task strategies rather than the task results that inform our understanding of information processing in Asp. This implies that, due to a lack of useful scoring methods for task strategies, neuropsychologists are largely dependent on a qualitative assessment of the test results (Teunisse, 2009).

Answer 21

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