Week 13: ASD Flashcards
two salient characteristics of ASD
- deficits in social communication
- restricted or repetitive behaviors or interests
ASD is an umbrella term for
autistic disorder asperger's syndrome rett's disorder childhood disintegrative disorder PDD-NOS
ASD behaviors can be both
impairments of immaturity as well as showing behaviors that would be abnormal at any age
severity levels of ASD are based on the
amount of support needed due to challenges with social communication and restructured interests/repetitive behaviors
onset of ASD should be
before 3 years old
ASD levels
- requires support
- requires substantial support
- requires very substantial support
rett’s disorder is now specified as
known genetic condition
DSM V
diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
DSM V allows for inclusion of
comorbid conditions such as ADHD or OCD
social communication disorder
both verbal and nonverbal communication • Responding to others • Taking turns • Using gestures • Staying on topic • Talking about emotions/feelings • Adjusting style of talking to fit different listeners • Asking questions • Making and keeping friends • NOT repetitive/restricted behaviors as seen in autism • Poor language comprehension • Poor reading comprehension • Can be distinguished from SLI and ASD
autism frequently co-occurs with
intellectual handicaps, ADHD, OCD, etc.
autism can be ______ to assess
hard; may have to use tangible reinforcement and present easy items first
no child should be denied…
an in-depth assessment of communicative skills because of a presumed diagnosis
ASD patterns often seen in identifying stimuli in assessments
- discrimination or identification of small differences between stimuli, ST memory
- excessively responsive to some stimuli or under responsive to other stimuli
neuropsychological studies show that ASD has an increase in
memory visuospatial sensoriperceptual single-modality problem-solving detail
neuropsychological studies of ASD show a decrease in
transfer of info across sensory modalities
complex tasks involving multiple domains of information processing
face recognition and imitation of other’s actions and emotions is a
relative weakness in autism
social cognition and understanding how others feel is a
relative weakness in autism
young children with autism often fail to
respond to others and do not seem interesting in social interaction
75% of verbal autistic children show use of
echolalia
older children with autism struggle to establish a shared frame of reference
not knowing whether to provide more or less information to the listener
older children with autism often have no ___________ to social norms as well as nonverbal cues in interaction
sensitivity
autism shows a primary disorder in ____________ rather than _____________
communication rather than language
autism includes problems with intentional communication but can co-occur with
language impairment
precursory signs of autism
- lack of joint attention behavior
- abnormal response to human voices
- gesture to request, protest, and regulate but not with sho and point
why is early diagnosis of autism important?
the earlier we can support them the better chances they have to develop speech, language, and comm.
it is difficult to diagnose early because
speech and language are higher cognitive functions so they don’t develop until later
when diagnosing autism early we can’t just look at
language development when the child starts to use real words, we have to look at precursory behaviors (CFU)
what would you look for if Carl came in at age 2 and is not using any real words?
precursors of CFU is carl understanding language? joint attention interest in looking at faces reacting when you call his name
some diagnostic autism tools
CHAT - checklist of autism behaviors
CARDS
M-CHAT - another checklist
50% of children autism never
develop speech
when speech is absent, it is not replaced with
communicative gestures as in hearing impairment or intellectual handicap
in autism, expressive requests and to protest are represented by
maladaptive behaviors
in autism the two areas of language that are most problematic are
content and use
interpersonal speech
when they are talking to themselves about their interests
nonliteral language and inferencing are
a deficit in autism
when a child walks into a clinician we should focus on
pragmatics
prognosis is related to two factors:
the level of cognitive skills that the child has and his language skills
three major theories of autism
executive function
central coherence
theory of mid/mentalizing/social cognition
executive function
metacognitive skills that we use to behave in everyday life, to plan our actions, etc. - this is the core of autism spectrum disorder
central coherence
this is getting the gist of situations
- processing detailed information but also reading situations in everyday life and make decisions and make judgements
