social explanations of autism Flashcards
how is emphasising and systemising measured?
on a scale - emphasising quotient and systemising quotient.
what are the types?
Type E – empathy is significantly higher level than their systemizing.
Type S – systemizing significantly higher level than empathy
Type B - empathy same level as systemising
Extreme type E – empathy above average but systemizing below average.
Extreme type S – systemizing above average but empathy below average.
Extreme type S is where 65% of people with ASD are found.
what did baron Cohen say empathising was? what does low emphasising lead to ?
what is systemising?
drive to recognise, identify and respond to others peoples emotional states. It allows us to understand and predict the behaviour of other people.
He also said those with ASD have underdeveloped empathizing skills. Low empathizing leads to mind blindness.
Systemising is the drive to analyse and understand systems. This is important in non social context.
what did baron Cohen say women are better at?
males are better at what?
females are better at emphasizing while males are better at systemizing.
Females – more sensitive to facial expressions, more person focused and has better instincts at how others feel.
Males – better at analyzing systems and more likely to be engineers, physicists and mathematicians.
what may impairments explain?
emphasizing may explain social communication deficits like lack of eye contact. Repetitive behaviours like the desire for routines and restricted interests may be strengthened by systemizing.
what supporting research is there for systemising empathising theory?
Auyeung et al – females higher on empathy and males higher on systemizing using child and adolescent versions of the quotient tests which are completed by parents and child. Self report, social desirability bias.
Wakabayashi et al – 1,500 Japanese ppts with ASD and 1250 uni students. ASD scored significantly lower on EQ and higher for SQ. External validity.
what contradictory research is there for empathising systemising?
Valla et al – eyes task to 144 males and females – male, high on systemizing and low on empathizing , females strong on both. Low external reliability as not consistently replicated. May struggle to explain all cases of ASD casting doubt.
what methodological issues are there for systemising empathising?
Buchen – focusing too heavily on high functioning autism. Research on more diverse samples to make more representative and improve external validity.
who is autism first defined by? who did he study?
parents were what?
first defined by Leo Kanner in 1943. Studied children who were ‘mentally retarded’.
Kanner studied 11 children who showed symptoms of ASD – parents - ‘in the whole group, there are very few warm hearted fathers and mothers’
brought up in emotional refrigerators – parents were emotionally cold, overly intellectual and critical and no emotional care.
Such women ‘just happened to defrost long enough to produce a child’
who did Bettelheim compared autistic people to?
ASD was a reaction to what ?
empty fortress’. He compared children with ASD to concentration amps. The deprivation suffered by prisoners was similar to lack of emotional care experienced by children with ASD.
ASD was a reaction to severe emotional neglect by mothers. Refrigerator mothers only care for physical needs and not emotional ones.
what did bettlehiem say the best solution for ASD was?
best solution was to remove children from their homes and raise in an environment where they could receive emotional care – orthogenic school for people who would benefit from a ‘parentectomy’. Marked the idea that autism was a disorder of parenting.
what supporting research is there for refrigerator mother?
Rutter et al – 111 Romanian children. Before adoption, no emotional care (privation). Assessed once adopted. Profound institutional privation can result in symptoms which are similar to autism - 6% autistic like behavior. The link between lack of emotional are and ASD shows at least some children who had no emotional support in Romanian suffered privation and symptoms of autism.
what contradictory research is there for refrigerator mother?
Rimland – most parents of those with ASD don’t match ‘refrigerator parents’, those that do don’t have children with ASD, those with ASD do not have Siblings who also have ASD. Expected they would but not – 93% cases – Campbell.
why is there confusion over cause and effect for refrigerator mothers?
refrigerator mothers are an effect of ASD and not a cause. Mothers are overwhelmed with stress and depression. Direction of cause and effect is wrong.
