Motivation, Self-Monitoring, & Family Process in Autism

描述(由申请人提供)：本申请描述了一个相互关联的研究计划，该计划将提供关于神经生物学和家庭过程的广泛和多方面的数据，这些过程有助于功能较高的自闭症儿童(UFA儿童)的社会发展。它的目的是提供必要的描述性科学数据，为开发更有效的诊断和干预方法奠定立即有用的基础，以满足小学至高中阶段较高功能儿童的具体社会情感需求。与这一应用目标相结合，这项研究计划也被设计来测试关于动机和自我监控相关的大脑系统以及家庭因素在HFA儿童社会发展中的作用的新假设。具体地说，这项申请描述了一项研究，该研究将检查神经生物学和家庭过程的维度，理论表明，这些维度导致了高功能儿童的社会障碍和共病。这些过程包括：1)与脑电前不对称性有关的动机过程；2)与脑电错误相关的负性有关的自我监控过程；3)与父母的情绪状态和家庭批判性表达情绪有关的过程。1本研究的目的是复制和扩展初步的观察结果，即前部脑电不对称测量提供了HFA儿童亚组的一个重要标志，这些亚组在社会损害、共病焦虑和执行功能的测量上存在显著差异，并提供了对照。第二个目标是检验假设，即HFA儿童在自我监控措施上将与对照组不同，自我监控将与HFA亚组在社会障碍和共病焦虑方面的差异有关。这项申请的最终目的是检查父母的情绪状况和/或家庭表达的情绪与HFA儿童的社会障碍和共病的个体差异的关系程度。为了解决这些具体目标，本申请提出了一项针对2个年龄组(8-12岁和13-17岁)的120名HFA儿童和120名年龄、性别和智商匹配的对照儿童的研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application describes an interrelated program of studies that will provide a broad and multifaceted array of data on neurobiological and family processes that contribute to the social development of higher-function children with autism (UFA children). It has been designed to provide descriptive scientific data necessary to establish an immediately useful foundation for the development of more effective diagnostic and intervention methods to meet the specific social emotional needs of higher functioning children in the elementary through high-school years. In conjunction with this applied goal, this program of studies has also been designed to test new hypotheses about the role of motivation and self-monitoring related brain systems, as well as family factors, in the social development of HFA children. In particular, this application describes research that will examine dimensions of neurobiological and family processes that theory suggests contribute to both social impairments and comorbidity in higher functioning children. Included here are: 1) motivation processes associated with anterior EEG asymmetry, 2) self-monitoring processes associated with EEG error related negativity and, 3) processes associated with parent's emotional status and family critical expressed emotion (EE). 1 aim of this research is to replicate and extend preliminary observations that anterior EEG asymmetry measures provide an important marker of subgroups of HFA children that significantly differ from each other, and controls, on measures of social impairment, comorbid anxiety and executive functions. A second aim is to test the hypotheses that HFA children will differ from controls on measures of self-monitoring, and that self-monitoring will be related to HFA sub-group differences in social impairments and comorbid anxiety. A final aim of this application is to examine the degree to which parent emotional status and/or family expressed emotion is related to individual differences in social impairments and comorbidity among HFA children. To address these specific aims this application proposes a study of 120 HFA children in 2 age groups (8-12 and 13-17 years) and 120 age, gender and IQ matched controls.