Nonspecificity and theory of mind: new evidence from a nonverbal false-sign task and children with autism spectrum disorders

Understanding of false belief has long been considered to be a crucial aspect of theory of mind that can be explained by a domain-specific mechanism. We argue against this claim using new evidence from a non-verbal false representation task (false-sign task) with typically developing children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Experiments 1 and 2 showed that typically developing children (mean age = 62.67 months) were equivalent in their performance across non-verbal and verbal forms of both the false-belief and false-sign tasks. Results for these two misrepresentation tasks differed from the results of an outdated representation task (“false” photograph task). Experiment 3 showed that children with ASD had difficulties with the false representation tasks and this could not be explained by executive functioning or language impairments. These findings support the view that children with ASD may not have a specific theory of mind deficit

A cross-syndrome approach to the social phenotype of neurodevelopmental disorders: Focusing on social vulnerability and social interaction style

Background: Following Annette Karmiloff-Smith’s approach to cognitive research, this study applied a cross-syndrome approach to the social phenotype, focusing on social vulnerability (SV) and the factors that contribute to it. Aims: To (i) identify syndrome-specific differences in SV across four neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) groups, (ii) determine the contribution of intellectual disability (ID), age or gender to SV, and (iii) explore its relationship with social interaction style (SIS). Methods and procedures: 262 parents of children: Autism (n = 29), Williams syndrome (n = 29), Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (n = 36), Fragile X syndrome (n = 18), and Neurotypical (n = 150) reported on their child’s SV, quality of SIS and other factors (ID, age, gender). Outcomes and results: Heightened SV was not syndrome-specific. Instead it was found equally across NDD groups (and not in the neurotypical group), and independently of ID, age and gender. Different atypical SISs were also distributed across NDD groups and each were significantly related to SV, independent of the factors above and beyond neurodevelopmental diagnosis. Conclusions and implications: The findings emphasise that social phenotypes are best understood as distributed across diagnostic boundaries and offer opportunities to further test the role of varied atypical SISs in the development of heightened SV

The frequency of restricted and repetitive behaviours in a community sample of 15 month-old infants

Objective: To investigate the frequency and pattern of a wide range of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) in the second year of life. Method: Parents of 139 15-month-old typically developing infants from a community sample completed the Repetitive Behaviour Questionnaire-2 (RBQ-2), giving information on RRBs (e.g. stereotyped motor movements, sensory interests, routines and rituals and preoccupations with restricted interests) seen in their children. Results: The RBQ-2 was found to be a reliable measure of these behaviors at this age and revealed a high frequency of particular types of repetitive motor movements in 15-month-olds. Conclusion: These findings have implications for the early detection of disorders characterized by high levels of restricted and repetitive behaviors, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Eye-movements reveal attention to social information in autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition in which children show reduced attention to social aspects of the environment. However in adults with ASD, evidence for social attentional deficits is equivocal. One problem is that many paradigms present social information in an unrealistic, isolated way. This study presented adults and adolescents, with and without ASD, with a complex social scene alongside another, non-social scene, and measured eye-movements during a 3-s viewing period. Analyses first identified viewing time to different regions and then investigated some more complex issues. These were: the location of the very first fixation in a trial (indicating attentional priority); the effect of a task instruction on scan paths; the extent to which gaze-following was evident; and the degree to which participants’ scan paths were influenced by the low-level properties of a scene. Results indicate a superficially normal attentional preference for social information in adults with ASD. However, more sensitive measures show that ASD does entail social attention problems across the lifespan, supporting accounts of the disorder which emphasise lifelong neurodevelopmental atypicalities. These subtle abnormalities may be sufficient to produce serious difficulties in real-life scenarios

Interacting mindreaders

Could interacting mindreaders be in a position to know things which they would be unable to know if they were manifestly passive observers? This paper argues that they could. Mindreading is sometimes reciprocal: the mindreader's target reciprocates by taking the mindreader as a target for mindreading. The paper explains how such reciprocity can significantly narrow the range of possible interpretations of behaviour where mindreaders are, or appear to be, in a position to interact. A consequence is that revisions and extensions are needed to standard theories of the evidential basis of mindreading. The view also has consequences for understanding how abilities to interact combined with comparatively simple forms of mindreading may explain the emergence, in evolution or development, of sophisticated forms of social cognition

Are autistic traits in the general population stable across development?

There is accumulating evidence that autistic traits (AT) are on a continuum in the general population, with clinical autism representing the extreme end of a quantitative distribution. While the nature and severity of symptoms in clinical autism are known to persist over time, no study has examined the long-term stability of AT among typically developing toddlers. The current investigation measured AT in 360 males and 400 males from the general population close to two decades apart, using the Pervasive Developmental Disorder subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist in early childhood (M = 2.14 years; SD = 0.15), and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient in early adulthood (M = 19.50 years; SD = 0.70). Items from each scale were further divided into social (difficulties with social interaction and communication) and non-social (restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests) AT. The association between child and adult measurements of AT as well the influence of potentially confounding sociodemographic, antenatal and obstetric variables were assessed using Pearson's correlations and linear regression. For males, Total AT in early childhood were positively correlated with total AT (r = .16, p = .002) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) in adulthood. There was also a positive correlation for males between social AT measured in early childhood and Total (r = .17, p = .001) and social AT (r = .16, p = .002) measured in adulthood. Correlations for non-social AT did not achieve significance in males. Furthermore, there was no significant longitudinal association in AT observed for males or females. Despite the constraints of using different measures and different raters at the two ages, this study found modest developmental stability of social AT from early childhood to adulthood in boys

The relationship between sensory sensitivity and autistic traits in the general population.

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) tend to have sensory processing difficulties (Baranek et al. in J Child Psychol Psychiatry 47:591–601, 2006). These difficulties include over- and under-responsiveness to sensory stimuli, and problems modulating sensory input (Ben-Sasson et al. in J Autism Dev Disorders 39:1–11, 2009). As those with ASD exist at the extreme end of a continuum of autistic traits that is also evident in the general population, we investigated the link between ASD and sensory sensitivity in the general population by administering two questionnaires online to 212 adult participants. Results showed a highly significant positive correlation (r = .775, p < .001) between number of autistic traits and the frequency of sensory processing problems. These data suggest a strong link between sensory processing and autistic traits in the general population, which in turn potentially implicates sensory processing problems in social interaction difficulties

A Pilot Study with a Novel Setup for Collaborative Play of the Humanoid Robot KASPAR with children with autism

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article describes a pilot study in which a novel experimental setup, involving an autonomous humanoid robot, KASPAR, participating in a collaborative, dyadic video game, was implemented and tested with children with autism, all of whom had impairments in playing socially and communicating with others. The children alternated between playing the collaborative video game with a neurotypical adult and playing the same game with the humanoid robot, being exposed to each condition twice. The equipment and experimental setup were designed to observe whether the children would engage in more collaborative behaviours while playing the video game and interacting with the adult than performing the same activities with the humanoid robot. The article describes the development of the experimental setup and its first evaluation in a small-scale exploratory pilot study. The purpose of the study was to gain experience with the operational limits of the robot as well as the dyadic video game, to determine what changes should be made to the systems, and to gain experience with analyzing the data from this study in order to conduct a more extensive evaluation in the future. Based on our observations of the childrens’ experiences in playing the cooperative game, we determined that while the children enjoyed both playing the game and interacting with the robot, the game should be made simpler to play as well as more explicitly collaborative in its mechanics. Also, the robot should be more explicit in its speech as well as more structured in its interactions. Results show that the children found the activity to be more entertaining, appeared more engaged in playing, and displayed better collaborative behaviours with their partners (For the purposes of this article, ‘partner’ refers to the human/robotic agent which interacts with the children with autism. We are not using the term’s other meanings that refer to specific relationships or emotional involvement between two individuals.) in the second sessions of playing with human adults than during their first sessions. One way of explaining these findings is that the children’s intermediary play session with the humanoid robot impacted their subsequent play session with the human adult. However, another longer and more thorough study would have to be conducted in order to better re-interpret these findings. Furthermore, although the children with autism were more interested in and entertained by the robotic partner, the children showed more examples of collaborative play and cooperation while playing with the human adult.Peer reviewe

'H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, PEE! Get it? Pee!': Siblings' shared humour in childhood

Humour is a central feature of social interactions in childhood that has received little attention. In a sample of 86 7‐year‐old children (M age = 7.82 years, SD = 0.80), we investigated patterns and individual differences in spontaneous humour observed during free play with their older (M age = 9.55 years, SD = 0.88) or their younger sibling (M age = 5.87 years, SD = 0.96). We coded children's instances, categories, and responses to humour. We investigated the nature of children's humour on the dyadic and individual level. Humour was common, and siblings’ production of humour was highly interdependent between play partners. Dyadic humour differed according to structural features of the sibling relationship (age, gender composition), and 7‐year‐old focal children's humour varied according to gender. This study contributes to knowledge regarding the dyadic nature of children's humour and individual patterns of humour beyond the preschool years