Lecture 9 Neurodivergence in development and Autism

Causes of Developmental Conditions

• Chromosomal abnormalities
– Genetic mutation
• Down syndrome (extra copy of chromosome 21)
• Prenatal factors
– Damage while in womb (oxygen deprivation, maternal infection, structural
differences in brain)
• Ex: Cerebral Palsy
• Unknown combination
– Genetic, environmental, psychological, neurological

Autism
• Early descriptions (Kanner, 1943; Asperger, 1944)

– Low IQ
– “autistic aloneness” – inability relate to others
– “desire for sameness” – upset by changes

Wing & Gould (1979): Triad of impairments

– A: Impairments in social interaction (lack of eye-to-eye contact, failure to develop peer
relations)
– B: Impairments in communication (language delay, lack of varied make-believe play)
– C: Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour (narrow interests, ritualistic or compulsive
behaviours)

Description & Diagnosis of autism

• Different characteristics and combinations of criteria, varying severity
• May show “islets of ability”: equivalent to, or better than neurotypical people
(e.g. rote memory, spatial tasks)
• ~3x more men/boys diagnosed than women/girls
– Might be down to different presentation/outdated or biased view of autism
– Similar difficulties in diagnosis with non-binary individuals and ethnic minorities

Causes of Autism?

• Hereditary component?
– Some evidence from twin and family studies
• Structural differences in the brain
– Connection or structural differences in the brain?
– Differences between girls and boys? (e.g. Smith et al, 2019)
• NEED MORE DATA! (Mo et al, 2021)
• BUT: To date, no clear genetic/ neurological explanation

Problems with Diagnosis

• Diagnosed and defined using behavioural criteria
– Some signs appear early (12-18 months)
– Typically around 3+ years, but can go undiagnosed
• Increase recently in numbers, largely due to better diagnostic material and
understanding of impairments
• Developmental outcomes highly variable
– Why so much variability in terms of what develops, when, and in whom?

Many theories attempt to explain differences, including

executive function

weak central coherence

theory of mind defect

Executive Functioning (EF) = an umbrella term

– ex: planning, organising, inhibition, impulse control, sustaining
attention
– Can repetitive, restricted behaviours be explained by impairment in
executive control?
• early difficulties in EF might play role in developmental outcomes
• Correlation between EF and ToM

Weak Central Coherence

– Central coherence = TD people have tendency to process incoming info
globally
– WCC = bias for featural or local information, details
– Proposed to explain certain aspects of autism (Frith & Happe, 1994)
– Ex: Islets of ability, excellent rote memory, preoccupation with parts of
objects
– Superiority in detail, rather than deficit in global?

How might a ToM deficit lead to social impairments?

– Limits effective social understanding
– Makes it difficult to interpret behaviour of others
– Makes it difficult to communicate
– Might explain sameness and routine indirectly

Baron-Cohen et al (1985)

• Sally-Anne false belief task
• Autism with mental age >4
• TD children aged 4
• Down’s syndrome with mental
age >4

RESULTS of sally Anne autism test

– 80% of TD & DS solved
– Only 20% of autistic group
• Perner et al (1989)
– Similar results with Smarties task

Baron-Cohen et al. 1986
explanation using stories

• Autistic children could order & explain
mechanical and behavioural stories
• Difficulty ordering “mentalistic” stories
– Randomly ordered, and only reported
what they could see, no mental states

Limitations of the ToM Hypothesis

• Not all children fail these tasks
– Autistic children sometimes perform at TD levels
– Challenge universality of ToM deficits, and thus the hypothesis?
• Not necessarily (Happe, 1995)
– Autistic children don’t solve until much older than TD children
– Perhaps relying on different strategies on simpler tasks?
– What about more challenging ToM tasks?

can second order belief tasks be asnswered

ie “Where does Anne think
Sally will look for the
marble?”
Some autistic individuals can
solve these tasks

Strange Stories Task

More natural, complex challenge than false belief tasks (Happe, 1994)
• Participants read short story and are asked why a character say something they don’t mean
literally (white lie, pretend, joking, idioms):

• Even those who passed 2nd order ToM tasks were impaired suggesting tht thye may have created compensatory mechanisms to understand the second order task better rather than true understand
– Too vocabulary-loaded? comorbitiy between language disorders and autism so may struggle with

One day Aunt Jane came to visit Peter. Now Peter loves his aunt very much, but today she is wearing a new hat; a
new hat, which Peter thinks is very ugly indeed. Peter thinks his aunt looks silly in it, and much nicer in her old hat.
But when Aunt Jane asks Peter “What do you think of my new hat?” Peter says, “Oh, it’s very nice”
Was it true what Peter said? Why did he say it?

Reading the mind through the eyes

test of the ability to recognize another person's emotional expression.

baron-Cohen et al. (1997) rmet

• Infer mental states from eyes alone
– Designed to address ToM abilities beyond those of a 6-yr-old
– Choose between correct emotion and “foil” (ex: concerned vs. unconcerned)
• Autistic group significantly impaired compared to TD group and
Tourette Syndrome group
• Is it really measuring ToM?
– Test has been criticized, particularly by autistic people

autistic people can still understand emotions but don’t use those cues

Gernsbacher & Yergeau (2019)

Gernsbacher & Yergeau (2019)
“Empirical Failures of the Claim That Autistic People Lack a Theory of Mind”

systematically looked through studies in tom
• Failures of specificity
• Failures of universality
• Failures of replicability
• Failures of validity

Failures of Specificity & Universality

• Many non-autistic individuals fail these tasks
– Children with other developmental conditions as well
– Neurotypical children more likely to fail if they have fewer siblings, fewer adult relatives living nearby
• Not all autistic participants fail these tasks

may be due to specific types of social situations

• Why do some pass and others don’t?

– ToM tasks rely heavily on spoken language
– Longitudinal studies suggest vocabulary predicts performance on false belief tasks more than age
– Meta-analyses (combining lots of study) comparing autistic vs non-autistic individuals found that vocabulary predicts false belief performance more than whether or not an individual is autistic
• Really only tapping into communication impairments?

Failures of Replicability and Validity

• Failure to replicate earlier findings
– Ex. Baron-Cohen et al (1986) – no other study has found the same
differences
– Strange stories and Sally-Anne tasks also mixed results
– Small sample sizes in original studies?
• Failures of convergent validity
– Are different ToM tests measuring the same construct?
– Performance on many ToM tasks isn’t correlated (e.g. performance on
strange stories and reading the mind in the eyes tasks)

tests don’t correlate so may not all measure the same thing
• Failures of predictive validity
– Does performance on ToM tasks predict socioemotional function?
– Evidence that does not significantly predict empathy/emotional
understanding, social skills, peer relations/pro-social behaviour and more

ie whats the point if you cant help

Failure to replicate earlier findings

– Ex. Baron-Cohen et al (1986) – no other study has found the same
differences
– Strange stories and Sally-Anne tasks also mixed results
– Small sample sizes in original studies?

• Failures of convergent validity

– Are different ToM tests measuring the same construct?
– Performance on many ToM tasks isn’t correlated (e.g. performance on
strange stories and reading the mind in the eyes tasks)

• Failures of predictive validity

– Does performance on ToM tasks predict socioemotional function?
– Evidence that does not significantly predict empathy/emotional
understanding, social skills, peer relations/pro-social behaviour and more

What else might explain differences?

• Double-empathy problem (e.g. Milton, 2012; Mitchell et al, 2021)
– Autistic and non-autistic people have different social communication styles
– Breakdown in mutual understanding

DIFFERENT social styles rather than deficits

breakdown in a mutual understanding so. the way a eprosn is behaving impacts hwo they are perceived which impacts the way they behvare and this impacts how they interpret the behaviours of others

What else might explain differences?
• Sheppard et al (2016)

– Autistic and Non-autistic people filmed during 4 conditions (joke, waiting, telling story, telling compliments)
– Non-autistic participants better able to correctly identify condition for other non- autistics (in all except ‘joke’ condition). ie do they have a deficit in understanding how autistic people react?
– Not because autistic participants reacting “less expressively”
– In a separate study, rated just as “expressive” as non-autistic people in all conditions except “compliments

DIFFERETNLY expressive not not expressive

participants asked to match people to the condition ie a person telling a joke

Moving forward

• Acknowledging biases and impacts on autistic people
– Traditional ToM deficit account has been accused of dehumanizing autistic individuals
– Perspectives of autistic people rarely taken into consideration! (Jaswal & Akhtar, 2018)
• Acknowledging different expressions of social behaviour
– Neurotypical people fail to read minds of autistic people (Sheppard et al. 2016)
– Different ways of viewing the world leading to breakdown in understanding
• Acknowledging the impact these perceptions can have on development
– Clinical practice!
– Parent-child interactions!
– Self-esteem and well-being!

current diagnostic critter dsm

dsm 5 must meet or have met criteria in 4 areas

a persisentent defects in social communication and interction

b restricted repetitive patterns of behaviour or interests

c symptoms must present in childhood symptoms must limit or impair everyday functioning

autistic people may show islets of ability…

equivalent to or better than neurotypical pople ie at route memory or spatial tasks

diagnosis timeline for autism

some signs appear early ie 12-18 mmonths picxally around 3 + they get diagnosed but many go indiagnsoed

what ciausncrea diaegnosis nmbers

manily due to better diagnostic material and understanding of impairments

how does impairment in executive functioning link with autism

repetitive resitive behaviours thought to be explained by impairments in executive control

link of 3 theorys and associated deficits

executive functioning- repetitive behaviours and restirive behaviours

weak central coherance- islets of ability and detail orientated

theoru of mind- social defects and explains sameness and routine indirectly as cant reason out behaviour so hard to predict behaviour of others so want to control what you can

samrties task

• Setup: The experimenter shows the child a tube of Smarties (a popular candy) and asks the child what they think is inside.

• Child's Response: Typically, the child will say "Smarties."

• Surprise Reveal: The experimenter opens the tube to reveal something unexpected (e.g., pencils) inside.

• Key Question: The child is then asked:

  • “If another person comes in and sees this tube, what will they think is inside?”

• Follow-up Question: The child might also be asked what they initially thought was inside.

baron cohne et al 1986

ordering a story, one mechanical one behavioural and on mentalistic

autisc children could order nad explain mechanical and behavioural stories but not mentalistic

randomly ordered them instead and did not talk about mental states

who found evidence against baron Cohen etal 1968

gernsbacher and yergeau 2019

what did happe 1995 find about tom

• children with autism pass ToM tasks, they may rely on learned rules or strategies rather than intuitive understanding of mental states.

• This highlights a qualitative difference in how ToM is processed in autistic individuals compared to typically developing children.

• Some children with autism who were older or had higher verbal IQs could pass first-order ToM tasks (e.g., understanding that "Person A thinks X"), but struggled with more complex second-order tasks (e.g., "Person A thinks that Person B thinks X").

what came after seocnd oder belief tasks to make tom better to study

strange story tasks