Autism and the Development of Relational Awareness

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目将调查以下假设：（a）自闭症儿童在把握一件事与另一件事之间的关系方面有异常的困难（例如，（B）在生命的第二年，在感知物理上不相关的事物之间的概念联系的基本能力方面出现了关键性的进步，（c）自闭症儿童可以表现出规则学习，并且可以在对如何向他们呈现物体之间的关系进行相当简单的修改时掌握抽象概念。21个月以下的典型发育（TD）婴儿和自闭症儿童即使在最小的延迟下也很难掌握“延迟不匹配样本（DNMS）”规则，当奖励被放在刺激物下方的浅威尔斯中时;尽管一旦他们学会了规则，他们在长时间的延迟下也能成功。由于自闭症儿童似乎与婴儿一样未能通过DNMS，他们可能因相同的原因而失败，并可能在相同的条件下成功。如果奖励与刺激物的底部相连（当刺激物在井的顶部时，奖励仍然隐藏），12个月的婴儿很容易掌握不匹配规则。我们预测，当奖励附着在刺激的基础上（尽管是可分离的）时，自闭症儿童也会同样成功。如果自闭症儿童能够掌握抽象的规则，以及在魔术贴条件下刺激和奖励之间的联系，那么干预的意义是令人兴奋的。大多数自闭症儿童的行为训练没有考虑暗示和所指是否有身体上的联系。形成抽象概念和把握线索与所指之间关系的能力对认知和社会发展的各个方面都至关重要。因此，我们希望我们的研究结果将有直接和立即的影响，教一些幼儿自闭症更有效，更早，更大的真实的收购比以前认为可能的一些概念。为了更好地了解自闭症儿童将一件事与另一件事联系起来的能力，以及身体连接对他们做到这一点的重要性，将使用3个任务，每个任务有2-3个条件。为了确定这是否是自闭症儿童特有的，自闭症儿童的发展水平，以及这种能力的典型发展进程，这些任务将被给予患有（a）自闭症和（B）唐氏综合征的轻度发育迟缓的学龄前儿童（每组的平均年龄为45个月，平均智力年龄为27个月），以及27、24、21、18、15和12个月的TD儿童。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will investigate the hypothesis that: (a) children with autism have unusual difficulty grasping the relation between one thing & another (e.g., between a stimulus object & reward object) that cannot be attributed to cognitive delay, (b) critical advances in this fundamental ability to perceive conceptual connections between physically unconnected things occur during the 2nd year of life, and (c) children with autism can show rule-learning and can grasp abstract concepts when fairly simple modifications are made in how the relation between objects is presented to them. Typically-developing (TD) infants under 21 months and children with autism have inordinate difficulty acquiring the "delayed nonmatching to sample [DNMS]" rule even with minimal delays, when the rewards are placed in shallow wells just beneath the stimuli; though once they've learned the rule, they succeed at long delays. Since children with autism appear to fail DNMS in the same ways as do infants, they may be failing for the same reasons and may succeed under the same conditions. If the reward is velcroed to the base of the stimulus (reward still hidden when stimulus is atop a well), infants of 12 months readily grasp the nonmatching rule. We predict that children with autism will similarly succeed when the rewards are attached to (though detachable from) the base of the stimuli. If children with autism are able to grasp the abstract rule and the connection between stimulus and reward in the velcro condition, the implications for intervention are exciting. Most behavioral training with children with autism has not considered whether cue and referent are physically connected. The ability to form abstract concepts and grasp the relation between cue and referent is critical for diverse facets of cognitive and social development. Thus, we expect our findings will have direct and immediate implications for teaching some concepts to some young children with autism more efficiently, earlier, and with greater real acquisition than previously thought possible. To better understand the ability of children with autism to relate one thing to another, and the importance of physical connectivity to their ability to do that, 3 tasks, each with 2-3 conditions, will be used. To determine whether this is specific to children with autism, at what developmental level children with autism are performing, and the typical developmental progression in the unfolding of this ability, these tasks will be given to mildly developmentally-delayed preschoolers with (a) autism and (b) Down syndrome (each group with a mean age of 45 months and mean mental age of 27 months), and TD children of 27, 24, 21,18, 15, and 12 months.