lecture 4

Question 1

what is the official term in the DSM-V for autism?

Answer 1

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Question 2

what is Asperger’s Syndrome?

Answer 2

people are on the autism spectrum, but do not have language delay or learning disability

Question 3

what is autism?

Answer 3

combination of impaired social communication, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour

Question 4

what does the DSM-5 suggest are the standard criteria to diagnose autism?

Answer 4

persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across multiple contexts

restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour/interests/activities

symptoms are present during the early developmental period

symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in areas of functioning

not better explained by intellectual disability or developmental delay

Question 5

how do autistic individuals demonstrate persistent deficits in social communication and interaction?

Answer 5

deficits in social-emotional reciprocity

deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction

deficits in developing/maintaining/understanding relationships

Question 6

how do autistic individuals demonstrate restricted, repetitive patterns?

Answer 6

reptitive movements/use of objects/use of speech

need routine

fixated interests of abnormal intensity

hyper/hypo reactivity to sensory input

Question 7

what are the three main cognitive theories of autism?

Answer 7

theory of mind
executive dysfunction
weak central coherence

Question 8

what is a summary of theory of mind for autism?

Answer 8

failure to acknowledge that others have their own thoughts and beliefs

Question 9

what is a summary of executive dysfunction for auitsm?

Answer 9

deficits in inhibition/planning/executive memory

Question 10

what is a summary of weak central coherence for autism?

Answer 10

preference for local details over the global whole or context

Question 11

how did Baron-Cohen et al (1985) investigate theory of mind for autism?

Answer 11

used the Sally Ann task

Sally puts her ball in the basket, Sally goes away, Anne moves the ball to her box, where will Sally look for her ball?

only 20% of autistic individuals could answer this correctly

Question 12

how did Klin et al (2000) investigate theory of mind in autistic individuals?

Answer 12

based on the inactive mind hypothesis- according to this, early in development autistic children are not tuned to the social environment which affects their learning

showed geometric shapes acting out a social interchange-autistic individuals described it in terms of physical actions rather than an abstract interpretation

Question 13

how did Perner et al (1989) investigate theory of mind in autistic individuals?

Answer 13

unexpected object task

pencils in a smarties tube

autistic children experienced difficulties related to acknowledging false beliefs

Question 14

how did Sparrevohn and Howie criticise theory of mind research in autistic individuals?

Answer 14

autistic children with higher verbal mental ages are more likely to pass theory of mind tasks

Question 15

how did Happe (1995) criticise theory of mind research in autistic individuals?

Answer 15

meta analysis

relationship between a child’s verbal mental age and passing false belief tasks

verbal mental age of 12 are able to pass

Question 16

how did Baron-Cohen (1989) criticise theory of mind research in autistic individuals?

Answer 16

autistic people pass first order false belief tasks (but not second order false belief tasks)

theory of mind problem was a delay rather than a deficit

not universal

Question 17

are theory of mind struggles unique to autistic individuals?

Answer 17

no- children with visual and hearing impairments show difficulties with false belief

Question 18

how did Ozonoff et al (1991) describe executive control in autistic individuals?

Answer 18

accounts for social and non social symptoms

executive control is the ability to maintain an appropriate problem solving method for the attainment of a future goal

Question 19

how does the Tower of Hanoi investigate executive control?

Answer 19

planning task
people have to move rings one at a time in the minimum number of moves
autistic children acted impulsively and could not plan several moves ahead

Question 20

how does the Wisconsin Card Sort investigate executive control?

Answer 20

set of card which you can sort according to different categories

this category rule is then changed

autistic children were unable to shift attentional focus, and continued to sort according to the original system

Question 21

how can the windows task be used to assess executive control?

Answer 21

if a child points to where the chocolate is, the experimenter eats it

then transfer to a task where you can now see where the chocolate is

children still pointed here, suggesting they find it difficult to resist pointing to the attentional focus

Question 22

how did Sodian and Frith (1992) investigate executive control?

Answer 22

burglar problem

either locked the box (executive function ability) or deceived them (demonstrates false belief)

autistic children were able to lock the box, but struggled with deception

difficulty with theory of mind, but not inhibitory control

Question 23

how did Frith (2003) explain weak central coherence?

Answer 23

attempted to explain both social and non social symptoms

biased to local over global processing

Question 24

how does language processing (Snowling and Frith, 1986) demonstrate weak central coherence?

Answer 24

people with autism fail to use context when processing ambiguous homographs

take language use as literal

struggle to understand sarcasm and irony

Question 25

how do perceptual tasks demonstrate weak central coherence?

Answer 25

embedded figures test

try to find the hidden figure in the bigger object

autistic people were faster which was due to viewing the picture in parts rather than as a whole

Question 26

what is the issue with using weak central coherence to explain autism?

Answer 26

inconsistent evidence- autistic individuals are not found to be less susceptible to visual illusions

theory is not universal or unique to autistic individuals

Question 27

what are the conclusions from cognitive explanations of autism?

Answer 27

autism cannot be explained by a single deficit

autism is the result of a complex interplay between multiple factors

several functional neural pathways relay to neurocognitive/social functions which are impaired in autism

Question 28

what is the difference between social and medical models of autism?

Answer 28

medical model denotes the problem as being within the individual

social model- society should adapt to the individual

Question 29

who proposed the double empathy model?

Answer 29

Milton, 2012

Question 30

what is the double empathy model?

Answer 30

autistic to autistic interactions are more efficient than autistic-non autistic interactions

Question 31

who investigated the diffusion chain?

Answer 31

Crompton et al, 2019

Question 32

what was investigated in the diffusion chain?

Answer 32

whether autistic peer-to-peer information transfer was more efficient than mixed autistic-non autistic

Question 33

how was the diffusion chain investigated?

Answer 33

people passed on a message
wanted to see how accurate it is by the end
3 chains: autistic chain/non autistic chain/mixed chain
matched on variables

Question 34

what were the results for the diffusion chain?

Answer 34

autistic peer-peer information transfer was more efficient than the mixed chain

autistic chain was better than the neurotypical chain

Question 35

who investigated how autistic people are perceived?

Answer 35

Sasson et al, 2017

Question 36

what did Sasson find out about how autistic people are perceived?

Answer 36

autistic and non autistic adults were recorded whilst interacting with someone

people didn’t know who was autistic and who wasn’t

nonautistic people tended to rate autistic people less socially favourably- not due to speech content but other audio/visual cues

Question 37

how did disclosing the autism diagnosis impact how autistic people were perceived in Sasson et al’s study?

Answer 37

disclosing the autism diagnosis and knowledge of autism increased favourability ratings of autistic people

Question 38

what is the relationship between autistic people and friendships?

Answer 38

DSM-V diagnostic criteria includes deficits in forming stable, long-lasting relationships

however, individuals with similar levels of autistic traits often report higher friendship quality

Question 39

what is Klin’s intervention approach to autism?

Answer 39

providing learning opportunities to autistic children early in development may improve social/communication skills

Question 40

what is the transporter intervention for autism?

Answer 40

children were shown videos of trains with real emotion faces

acted out social situations

looked at their emotion vocabulary and recognition before and after intervention

Question 41

what is the testing efficacy for autism interventions?

Answer 41

asked to match the correct emotion face to the situation

Question 42

what happened in autism acceptance training?

Answer 42

238 non autistic adults completed either this training/general mental health training/no training

tested attitudes towards autism explicitly and implicitly

non autistic adults in the autism acceptance training condition reported more positive perceptions of autistic adults, fewer misconceptions, higher expectations of autistic abilities, and greater social interest

had no effect on implicit biases