Developing individual in society Lecture 10 : 17/12/2020 Cognitive theories of Autism Lecturer: Niko Kargas Psychological theory: A fact-based framework for describing a phenomenon. A good psychological theory must: - Describe a behaviour - Predict future behaviours - Have universality (Factors are found in everyone) - Have uniqueness (Are the factors unique to the disorder?) - Have specificity (Does the disorder arise from a specific lone factor, or multiple?) ‘Theory of mind (ToM)' theory of autism - ToM refers to ability to attribute mental states to others and to oneself, as well as being able to deceive others. - A lack of ToM can result in: Socio-communicative deficits A lack of pretend play False-beliefs Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith: conducted research into whether the autistic child has a theory of mind, through the Sally-Anne task. (Unexpected transfer task) - This research found that autistic children failed this test of false-belief, unlike other non-autistic children (and children with downs syndrome) at a similar age. (Around 6 y/o) - This shows that autistic children as a group do not employ a ToM, social and emotional problems are secondary to the cognitive problem of autism. - Further study also showed that autistic children responded differently to typically developed children when tested with deceptive box test, and the majority failed this task also. - This clarified that the issue with autistic children was not due to problems with make-belief, but clearly something else. Leslie: - Found a link between social impairment and lack of pretend play. - Theorised pretend play was an expression of understanding of other minds. - Other minds would be recognised through a child's imagination. - He suggested poor performance of autistic children in pretend play and ToM tasks was because of deficits in cognitive decoupling, necessary for metarepresentation.
Evaluation of ToM hypothesis Strengths: - Powerful and robust theory. - Related to the understanding of the mind. - Clearly shows how autistic people have difficulties in social communication and interaction with others. Limitations: - Some with ASD pass false-belief tests. - Non-autistic people who lack the ability of meta-representation do not have difficulties socialising with other people, a clear contradiction to Leslie's' hypothesis. - Fails to explain all symptoms of autism (E.g., RRBs) Specificity: This theory is domain specific. Uniqueness: A lack or delay in ToM is not unique to autistic people. Deaf and blind children also fail or are delayed in this. Universality: This lack or delay of ToM is not found in all autistic people, as some do pass. Theory of Executive Function (EF) - EF is the ability to maintain an appropriate problem-solving set for the attainment of a future goal - It consists of a large variety of behaviours involved in this process. - These are linked to frontal structures in the brain. Ozonoff et al: Conducted research involving testing children with the Tower of Hanoi. - Disks had to be moved to match a determined goal state. - The number of disks could be changed, and a