Autism and the Development of Relational Awareness

描述(由申请人提供)：这个项目将调查假设：(A)自闭症儿童在掌握事物之间的关系(例如，刺激对象和奖励对象之间的关系)方面有异常困难，这不能归因于认知延迟，(B)在感知物理上无关的事物之间的概念联系的基本能力方面取得关键进展，发生在生命的第二年，以及(C)自闭症儿童可以表现出规则学习，并且当对对象之间的关系呈现给他们的方式进行相当简单的修改时，能够理解抽象的概念。21个月以下发育正常(TD)的婴儿和自闭症儿童，即使在最小的延迟时间内，当奖励被放置在刺激下方的浅井中时，也会非常困难地获得“延迟不匹配以采样[DNMS]”规则；尽管一旦他们学习了该规则，他们在长时间延迟时也会成功。由于自闭症儿童似乎与婴儿一样，不能通过DNM，他们可能会因为同样的原因而失败，在同样的条件下可能会成功。如果奖励被放在刺激的底部(当刺激放在井上时，奖励仍然隐藏着)，12个月大的婴儿很容易掌握不匹配的规则。我们预测，当奖赏附着在刺激的基础上(尽管可以脱离)时，自闭症儿童也会同样成功。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。大多数自闭症儿童的行为训练都没有考虑到线索和指称是否存在物理联系。形成抽象概念和把握线索和指称之间的关系的能力对于认知和社会发展的各个方面都是至关重要的。因此，我们预计，我们的发现将对向一些患有自闭症的幼儿更有效、更早、更实际地获得比之前认为可能的更多的概念具有直接和直接的影响。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，以及物理连接对他们做到这一点的重要性，我们将使用3个任务，每个任务有2-3个条件。为了确定这是否只针对自闭症儿童，自闭症儿童的发育水平，以及这种能力发挥的典型发展进程，这些任务将被交给患有(A)自闭症和(B)唐氏综合症的轻度发育迟缓的学龄前儿童(每组平均年龄45个月，平均智力年龄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.