A Promising Practice: Using Facebook as a Communication and Social Networking Tool

Individuals with autism often face barriers to social interaction. Residing in a rural environment can compound these difficulties for individuals diagnosed with autism. Some of the reasons include transportation problems and small social networks, in addition to the characteristics of autism. This article discusses a promising practice for supporting the communication and social opportunities for individuals with autism. The authors examined how Facebook supported the social interaction of Jacob, a 28-year old with High Functioning Autism. The findings suggested that, through Facebook, Jacob increased the quantity and quality of social ties he had with others. The authors argue that although online social networking has limitations, with supervision, tools such as Facebook hold potential for developing and increasing social interaction for individuals with High Functioning Autism /Asperger Syndrome

Brief report : the level and nature of autistic intelligence revisited

Owing to higher performance on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM) than on the Wechsler Intelligence Scales (WIS), it has recently been argued that intelligence is underestimated in autism. This study examined RPM and WIS IQs in 48 individuals with autism, a mixed clinical (n = 28) and a neurotypical (n = 25) control group. Average RPM IQ was higher than WIS IQ only in the autism group, albeit to a much lesser degree than previously reported and only for individuals with WIS IQs <85. Consequently, and given the importance of reliable multidimensional IQ estimates in autism, the WIS are recommended as first choice IQ measure in high functioning individuals. Additional testing with the RPM might be required in the lower end of the spectrum

Understanding of emotions based on counterfactual reasoning in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The understanding of emotions based on counterfactual reasoning was studied in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (n = 71) and in typically developing children (n = 71), aged 6-12 years. Children were presented with eight stories about two protagonists who experienced the same positive or negative outcome, either due to their own action or by default. Relative to the comparison group, children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder were poor at explaining emotions based on downward counterfactual reasoning (i.e. contentment and relief). There were no group differences in upward counterfactual reasoning (i.e. disappointment and regret). In the comparison group, second-order false-belief reasoning was related to children's understanding of second-order counterfactual emotions (i.e. regret and relief), while children in the high-functioning autism spectrum disorder group relied more on their general intellectual skills. Results are discussed in terms of the different functions of counterfactual reasoning about emotion and the cognitive style of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. © The Author(s) 2012

The effect of being imitated on empathy for pain in adults with high-functioning autism : disturbed self-other distinction leads to altered empathic responding

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is associated with problems in empathy. Recent research suggests that impaired control over self-other overlap based on motor representations in individuals with autism spectrum disorder might underlie these difficulties. In order to investigate the relationship of self-other distinction and empathy for pain in high-functioning autism and matched controls, we manipulated self-other distinction by using a paradigm in which participants are either imitated or not by a hand on a computer screen. A strong pain stimulus is then inflicted on the observed hand. Behavioral and physiological results in this study showed that overall affective responses while watching pain movies were the same in adults with high-functioning autism as in controls. Furthermore, controls showed higher affective responding after being imitated during the whole experiment, replicating previous studies. Adults with high-functioning autism, however, showed increased empathic responses over time after being imitated. Further exploratory analyses suggested that while affective responding was initially lower after being imitated compared to not being imitated, affective responding in the latter part of the experiment was higher after being imitated. These results shed new light on empathic abilities in high-functioning autism and on the role of control over self-other representational sharing

Atypical emotional anticipation in high-functioning autism

"Background: Understanding and anticipating others’ mental or emotional states relies on the processing of social cues, such as dynamic facial expressions. Individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) may process these cues differently from individuals with typical development (TD) and purportedly use a ‘mechanistic’ rather than a ‘mentalistic’ approach, involving rule- and contingency-based interpretations of the stimuli. The study primarily aimed at examining whether the judgments of facial expressions made by individuals with TD and HFA would be similarly affected by the immediately preceding dynamic perceptual history of that face. A second aim was to explore possible differences in the mechanisms underpinning the perceptual judgments in the two groups. Methods: Twenty-two adults with HFA and with TD, matched for age, gender and IQ, were tested in three experiments in which dynamic, ‘ecologically valid’ offsets of happy and angry facial expressions were presented. Participants evaluated the expression depicted in the last frame of the video clip by using a 5-point scale ranging from slightly angry via neutral to slightly happy. Specific experimental manipulations prior to the final facial expression of the video clip allowed examining contributions of bottom-up mechanisms (sequential contrast/ context effects and representational momentum) and a top-down mechanism (emotional anticipation) to distortions in the perception of the final expression. Results: In experiment 1, the two groups showed a very similar perceptual bias for the final expression of joy-to-neutral and anger-to-neutral videos (overshoot bias). In experiment 2, a change in the actor’s identity during the clip removed the bias in the TD group, but not in the HFA group. In experiment 3, neutral-to-joy/anger-to-neutral sequences generated an undershoot bias (opposite to the overshoot) in the TD group, whereas no bias was observed in the HFA group. Conclusions: We argue that in TD individuals the perceptual judgments of other’s facial expressions were underpinned by an automatic emotional anticipation mechanism. In contrast, HFA individuals were primarily influenced by visual features, most notably the contrast between the start and end expressions, or pattern extrapolation. We critically discuss the proposition that automatic emotional anticipation may be induced by motor simulation of the perceived dynamic facial expressions and discuss its implications for autism.

The I in Autism:severity and social functioning in Autism is related to self-processing

It is well established that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impaired understanding of others and deficits within social functioning. However, it is still unknown whether self-processing is related to these impairments and to what extent self impacts social functioning and communication. Using an ownership paradigm, we show that children with ASD and chronological- and verbal-age-matched typically developing (TD) children do show the self-referential effect in memory. In addition, the self-bias was dependent on symptom severity and socio-communicative ability. Children with milder ASD symptoms were more likely to have a high self-bias, consistent with a low attention to others relative to self. In contrast, severe ASD symptoms were associated with reduced self-bias, consistent with an ‘absent-self’ hypothesis. These findings indicate that deficits in self-processing may be related to impairments in social cognition for those on the lower end of the autism spectrum

発達障害児の知的構造に関する研究Ⅱ―アスペルガー障害と高機能自閉性障害―

The purpose of this paper is to examine the charactistics of the Intellectual structure of developmentally disabled children byconducting WISC- Ⅲ intelligence test for 32 patients, consisting of 15 of Asperger’s disorder, 17 of high functioning autism. The examination is to anaiyse in IQ, Group index, verbal IQ, action IQ, the score of intraindividual difference. The result shows both of them have an average intellectual ability. Verbal IQ is superior to active IQ for the patients of Asperger’s disorder, on the other hand active IQ is superior to verbal IQ fot the patients of high functioning autism. In group index, Asperger’s disorder patients have high ability to nderstand languages and low integrated capability of perception and high functioning autism patients caused the opposite result. As for the grade point of intradividual difference they are characterized by a big different degree of ability and low ability of understanding. As a result, both disabilities get an imbalance in intellectual structure and Cause the symptoms of hyperactivity disorder and obsession

Visual search for basic emotional expressions in autism: impaired processing of anger, fear and sadness, but a typical happy face advantage

Facial expression recognition was investigated in 20 males with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger syndrome (AS), compared to typically developing individuals matched for chronological age (TD CA group) and verbal and non-verbal ability (TD V/NV group). This was the first study to employ a visual search, "face in the crowd" paradigm with a HFA/AS group, which explored responses to numerous facial expressions using real-face stimuli. Results showed slower response times for processing fear, anger and sad expressions in the HFA/AS group, relative to the TD CA group, but not the TD V/NV group. Reponses to happy, disgust and surprise expressions showed no group differences. Results are discussed with reference to the amygdala theory of autism. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd