Lecture 9 - Atypical Development II - ASD Flashcards
(31 cards)
Define Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Difficulties understanding emotions/ emotional cues
- Neurologically based developmental disorder (ho w brain is structured)
- Complex set of disorders, on a spectrum of severity
- Chronic impairment in social relations/ functions
- Now several disorders are unified under ASD
Outline Kanner (1943) findings about the social stuff in ASD- Autistics Disturbanecs of Affective Contact
First to explore/ identity childhood ASD
- Social aloofness - socially different to others their age
- Own individual, shutting out the outside world
- Fearing change to their internal/ external env
- Limited in spontaneouty
- Struggle doing pretend play, and empathising with others
Outline Kanner’s (1943) findings about other things ASD effected
- Language was just about naming things, not so much for communication. But learnt language okay, just used it differently
- may refer to self as you, as thats what people say to him
- and call others i as thats what they say: i will give you this
- not interested in those around them
- Anxious tenseness in social world
- begin accepting a small group into their world
Outline Kanner’s case of donald (1943)
- he played within him self, didnt acknowledge anyone else, didnt play with them
- ASD impacts: Isolation, peer relations, play
What are the 3 DSM criteria for part A of ASD?
- Part A focus on social and emotional interaction
Part A focus on social and emotional interaction
- DEFICITS IN SOCIAL COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
Deficitis in:
- social-emotional reciprocity
- nonverbals- communicative behaviours in social interaction (e.g. eye contact)
- Developing, maintaining and understanding relationships
What are the 4 DSM Criteria for Part B of ASD
- which is about patterns of behaviour
RESTRICTED, REPETITIVE PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOUR, INTERESTS, OR ACTIVITIES
- repetitive motor movements
- Ritualised patterns
- Fixated interests
- Difficulties processing sensory information
Outline the prevalence of ASD
1- 1.5% of children
- more boys than girls - 5:1
Outline heritability of autism
Chance of sibling having ASD is 50X greater than average
- MZ twins: 77%
- DZ: 31%
- Siblings 20%
What are some potential causes of ASD outlined by Wendy Chung
- Advance paternal age
- Epilepsy medication of pregnant mother
- Maternal infections
- genetic is pretty much strongest one, but doesnt explain it all
What are the 4 social impairments in ASD
- as part of Part A of diagnosing
- Joint attention
- Language and communication
- Emotion
- Peer relationships - may lack peer support - peer recktion and isolation likely
- Impacts educational outcomes and mental health
- adolescence is a period of tough social times
Outline Joint attention as a social impairment
“Two people using eye gaze and gesture to share attention towards an interesting object or event”
- Preverbal communication
- getting someones attention towards something you are attending to - you are sharing that experience
- Children respond to these attention directives from 9 mo
- at 12mo they can do it - requesting attention or directing attention - advanced social skill, understand their can communicate to modify behaviour of others
- ASD’s are less likely to engage in joint attention with CG
- lack of interest in social world
- Especially problems with eye contact
Outline Language and communication as a social impairment
- develop language slower
- less responsive to their name when young
- Articulation normal
- High functioning ASD’s = good vocab, but less talk about mental states
- Severe autism = no language
Difficulties: • directing or Sharing attention • initiating communication - tend to be quieter •Pronouns • non-segmental phonology - tone, prosidy etc •Turn taking •Eye gaze • echolalia • sarcasm difficulties • metaphorical language
- ASD impairs language, just at different severities
- language has fewer functions - just factual stuff
Outline Echolalia
- Repetition of words or phrases someone else has said, with similar intonation
- Immediate or delayed
- Irrelevant or meaninfuless, or inappropriate
- Does help them with turn taking - not pointless
- They do this when they dont know what else to do
Outline Emotions as the 3rd social impairments
- Difficulties with emotion recognition, sharing
- Less concern or empathy for others
- Emotional and social experiences are intertwined
- Difficulties with regulation - easily stressed
- Poor emotional coordination and timing
- ASD interventions teach them to recognise what emotions others are feeling
Outline Redy et al (2002) study into Humour and Laughter in ASD
- ASD laughed in tickling and peekaboo play
- but didnt laugh in response to funny faces or sociall inappropriate acts
- rarely joined in with others laughter
- rarely tried to make others laught
- Less attended to others smiles and laughts
- May laugh in situations where it was unacceptable to laugh
Outline peer relationships as the 4th social impairments
- Difficulty forming and understanding friendshps, but they want friends (80% have at least 1 friend)
- Fewer friends, shorter contact with them
- See friendship as being about companionship, not intimacy
- Even if have knowledge of what makes a good friend, they have difficulty applying it
- is it because: Social interaction difficulty means they cannot have meaningful relationships - lack of eye contact, language/ communication,
- or because they have different views of what makes a good friend
Do they know what a good friend is, but struggle to enact this, or just have abnormal view of what friends are
What are the 2 factors that explain friendship patterns?
- Social Cognition
- Social motivation
- Social cognition
- emotion processing is slower
- Perspective taking poorer
- concrete approaches - Social Motivation
- Less rewarded by social interactions
- less drive to be in friendships
Outline Bullying in ASD
- more likely to be bullied as they are seen as odd or different
- Less likely to have friends as buffer
What developmental milestones are ASD delayed in?
- less Joint attention
- Less pretend play
- Delayed False-belief pass
- Delayed understand that words can hurt feelings
- Difficult to read faces and eyes for emotion
What are the 3 explanations for ASD
- ToM - social cognitive theory
- Empathising-systemising hypothesis
- Social Motivation Theory - a theory of social motivation
Outline ToM as a theory for ASD
- Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith (1985)
- Ability to explain and predict behaviour in terms of mental states
- ASD have mind blindedness
- Social world becomes confusing and unpredictable
- ASD develop some understanding of others desires and emotions - but continue to struggle with belief and other cognitive states
- Explains problems with empathy: “if i dont feel or perceive something, the other person wont feel or perceive it”
How is mindblindedness seen for certain in ASD
- Failure in joint attention
- Less pretend play - need imagination and empathy for toys
- Delays in passing false beliefs
- Difficulty understanding deception
- Difficulty predicting hurt feelings and reading eye expressions
- Basicaly: delays in putting self in others shoes
- Not all ASD have ToM defects
Outline how ASD cant represent mental states
- One character is imagining a dog, the other is holding one, Ask ASD’s who can stroke the dog
- they dont know as cannot distinguish mental and physical states
Outline Empathising-Systemizing theory (Baron-Cohen, 2009) as a theory of ASD
- ASD hae delays/ deficits in Empathy
- But have intact/ superior systemising skills
•Analyse/ construct systems, rules to explain and predict
•Applying categories and systems to things - Explains difficulty generalising - emphasises cognitive factors (systemising)
- Everything has a new system, so cannot act the same at home and at school
- notice similarities
Explains social/ communication difficulties and narrow interests, need to sameness, attention to detail
- social difficulties are not just associated with recognising others mental states, but responding to them