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)自闭症儿童在掌握一件事物与另一件事物之间的关系（例如，刺激对象与奖励对象之间的关系）方面有异常的困难，这不能归因于认知延迟；(b)这种感知物理上不相关事物之间概念联系的基本能力在生命的第2年取得了关键进展；(c)自闭症儿童可以表现出规则学习能力，当对物体之间的关系进行相当简单的修改时，他们可以掌握抽象概念。21个月以下的典型发育（TD）婴儿和自闭症儿童在获得“延迟不匹配样本（DNMS）”规则方面有极大的困难，即使是最小的延迟，当奖励被放置在刺激物下面的浅井中；虽然一旦他们学会了这个规则，他们在长时间的拖延中取得了成功。由于自闭症儿童在DNMS测试中失败的方式与婴儿相同，他们可能因为相同的原因而失败，也可能在相同的条件下成功。如果奖励贴在刺激物的底部（当刺激物在井的顶部时，奖励仍然是隐藏的），12个月大的婴儿很容易掌握不匹配规则。我们预测，当奖励与刺激的基础相关联（尽管可以分离）时，自闭症儿童也会取得类似的成功。如果自闭症儿童能够掌握魔术贴条件下的抽象规则以及刺激和奖励之间的联系，那么干预的意义是令人兴奋的。大多数针对自闭症儿童的行为训练都没有考虑线索和指涉物是否存在物理联系。形成抽象概念和掌握线索和指称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，我们期望我们的研究结果将对更有效、更早、更真实地获得自闭症儿童的一些概念的教学产生直接和直接的影响。为了更好地理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能力的重要性，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所特有的，自闭症儿童的发展水平是什么，以及这种能力展现的典型发展进程，这些任务将给予患有轻度发育迟缓的学龄前儿童(a)自闭症和(b)唐氏综合症（每组平均年龄为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.