What Does it Mean to be Autistic? Inter-state Variation in Special Education Criteria for Autism Services

The prevalence of Autism and other Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) has increased dramatically in recent years. The criterion for a clinical diagnosis of Autism, however, is independent from the special education eligibility requirements for Autism services. While the DSM-IV-TR provides a nationally-accepted definition for Autism and ASD, under federal law, the special education criteria for Autism services can vary from state to state. By analyzing federal, special education child-count data as well as each state’s legal code, this study examines and compares eligibility criteria in all 50 states and Washington DC. Our results reveal inter-state variability in Autism eligibility requirements within special education, and this variability can have an impact on prevalence rates. Implications and recommendations for researchers and practitioners in clinical psychology, public health, education, pediatrics, and public policy are discussed.     

Screening for autism in young children: The Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) and other measures

The literature on the importance of early identification and early intervention for children with developmental disabilities such as autism continues to grow. The increased prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders has fostered research efforts on the development and validation of autism-specific screening instruments for use with young children. There are currently several such autism-specific screening tools meant to be used with young children in various stages of development. Data from a few of these screening instruments have been published, and they include the Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT), Pervasive Developmental Disorders Screening Test (PDDST), Screening Tool for Autism in Two year olds (STAT), Checklist for Autism in Toddlers-23 (CHAT-23), and the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT). In this review, these five tools designed for use with children under three years old will be highlighted. In particular, the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) will be discussed.     

Tracking recognition of spoken words by tracking looks to printed words

Eye movements of Dutch participants were tracked as they looked at arrays of four words on a computer screen and followed spoken instructions (e.g., “Klik op het woord buffel”: Click on the word buffalo). The arrays included the target (e.g., buffel), a phonological competitor (e.g., buffer, buffer), and two unrelated distractors. Targets were monosyllabic or bisyllabic, and competitors mismatched targets only on either their onset or offset phoneme and only by one distinctive feature. Participants looked at competitors more than at distractors, but this effect was much stronger for offset-mismatch than onset-mismatch competitors. Fixations to competitors started to decrease as soon as phonetic evidence disfavouring those competitors could influence behaviour. These results confirm that listeners continuously update their interpretation of words as the evidence in the speech signal unfolds and hence establish the viability of the methodology of using eye movements to arrays of printed words to track spoken-word recognition.     

Tracking recognition of spoken words by tracking looks to printed words

Eye movements of Dutch participants were tracked as they looked at arrays of four words on a computer screen and followed spoken instructions (e.g., “Klik op het woord buffel”: Click on the word buffalo). The arrays included the target (e.g., buffel), a phonological competitor (e.g., buffer, buffer), and two unrelated distractors. Targets were monosyllabic or bisyllabic, and competitors mismatched targets only on either their onset or offset phoneme and only by one distinctive feature. Participants looked at competitors more than at distractors, but this effect was much stronger for offset-mismatch than onset-mismatch competitors. Fixations to competitors started to decrease as soon as phonetic evidence disfavouring those competitors could influence behaviour. These results confirm that listeners continuously update their interpretation of words as the evidence in the speech signal unfolds and hence establish the viability of the methodology of using eye movements to arrays of printed words to track spoken-word recognition.     

Social perception and WAIS-IV Performance in adolescents and adults diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and Autism

Previous research using the Wechsler scales has identified areas of cognitive weaknesses in children, adolescents, and adults diagnosed with Autism or Asperger's syndrome. The current study evaluates cognitive functioning in adolescents and adults diagnosed with Autism or Asperger's syndrome using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) and the Social Perception subtest from the Advanced Clinical Solutions. Deficits in social perception, verbal comprehension, and processing speed were found in the Autism sample. Additionally, they exhibited inconsistent performance on auditory working memory and perceptual reasoning tasks. The Asperger's syndrome group had better overall cognitive skills than the Autism group, but compared with controls, they had weaknesses in processing speed, social perception, and components of auditory working memory. Both groups had relatively low scores on the WAIS-IV Comprehension subtest compared with the other verbal comprehension subtests. Clinical application and utility of the WAIS-IV and Social Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorders are discussed.     

Language learning and control in monolinguals and bilinguals

Parallel language activation in bilinguals leads to competition between languages. Experience managing this interference may aid novel language learning by improving the ability to suppress competition from known languages. To investigate the effect of bilingualism on the ability to control native-language interference, monolinguals and bilinguals were taught an artificial language designed to elicit between-language competition. Partial activation of interlingual competitors was assessed with eye-tracking and mouse-tracking during a word recognition task in the novel language. Eye-tracking results showed that monolinguals looked at competitors more than bilinguals, and for a longer duration of time. Mouse-tracking results showed that monolinguals' mouse movements were attracted to native-language competitors, whereas bilinguals overcame competitor interference by increasing the activation of target items. Results suggest that bilinguals manage cross-linguistic interference more effectively than monolinguals. We conclude that language interference can affect lexical retrieval, but bilingualism may reduce this interference by facilitating access to a newly learned language.     

In competitive interaction displays of red increase actors' competitive approach and perceivers' withdrawal

Colors carry meaningful psychological signals. We hypothesized that the color red serves as a powerful cue in competition, affecting both actors and perceivers. Using simplified poker games we investigated the psychological meaning of color in competitive interaction, by examining how the color of chips (red vs. blue or white) used by participants or their competitors affected behavior. Although chip color was objectively unrelated to the chips' value or competitors' strength, perceiving competitors using red chips renders competitors more intimidating, which leads perceivers to withdraw. Furthermore, actors who used red chips felt more dominant, which led them to enhanced competitive approach. Displaying red thus makes actors feel stronger and increases competitive approach; perceivers of displays of red in competitors feel intimidated and withdraw from competing.     

Perceptual learning and perceptual search are altered in male university students with higher Autism Quotient scores

Two experiments investigated the validity of the Autism Quotient (AQ) scale for measuring traits associated with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in a population of male university students. Both studies found evidence that individuals who scored higher on the AQ questionnaire performed in a similar way to individuals with ASD on tasks with a perceptual component. Experiment 1 demonstrated a difference in the degree to which higher scoring AQ individuals performed on a perceptual learning task; with higher AQ scorers showing no advantage for familiar over novel items less. In Experiment 2, higher scorers showed fewer errors when judging the elements, as opposed to the global configuration, of a Navon task letter. Both of these patterns of results had previously been noted in individuals with ASD. These results suggest that the AQ may have some validity in identifying individuals in the nonclinical population with similar performance profiles to those with ASD.     

The nature of the visual environment induces implicit biases during language-mediated visual search

Four eyetracking experiments examined whether semantic and visual-shape representations are routinely retrieved from printed word displays and used during language-mediated visual search. Participants listened to sentences containing target words that were similar semantically or in shape to concepts invoked by concurrently displayed printed words. In Experiment 1, the displays contained semantic and shape competitors of the targets along with two unrelated words. There were significant shifts in eye gaze as targets were heard toward semantic but not toward shape competitors. In Experiments 2–4, semantic competitors were replaced with unrelated words, semantically richer sentences were presented to encourage visual imagery, or participants rated the shape similarity of the stimuli before doing the eyetracking task. In all cases, there were no immediate shifts in eye gaze to shape competitors, even though, in response to the Experiment 1 spoken materials, participants looked to these competitors when they were presented as pictures (Huettig & McQueen, 2007). There was a late shape-competitor bias (more than 2,500 ms after target onset) in all experiments. These data show that shape information is not used in online search of printed word displays (whereas it is used with picture displays). The nature of the visual environment appears to induce implicit biases toward particular modes of processing during language-mediated visual search.     

Heeding the voice of experience: the role of talker variation in lexical access

Two experiments used the head-mounted eye-tracking methodology to examine the time course of lexical activation in the face of a non-phonemic cue, talker variation. We found that lexical competition was attenuated by consistent talker differences between words that would otherwise be lexical competitors. In Experiment 1, some English cohort word-pairs were consistently spoken by a single talker (male couch, male cows), while other word-pairs were spoken by different talkers (male sheep, female sheet). After repeated instances of talker-word pairings, words from different-talker pairs showed smaller proportions of competitor fixations than words from same-talker pairs. In Experiment 2, participants learned to identify black-and-white shapes from novel labels spoken by one of two talkers. All of the 16 novel labels were VCVCV word-forms atypical of, but not phonologically illegal in, English. Again, a word was consistently spoken by one talker, and its cohort or rhyme competitor was consistently spoken either by that same talker (same-talker competitor) or the other talker (different-talker competitor). Targets with different-talker cohorts received greater fixation proportions than targets with same-talker cohorts, while the reverse was true for fixations to cohort competitors; there were fewer erroneous selections of competitor referents for different-talker competitors than same-talker competitors. Overall, these results support a view of the lexicon in which entries contain extra-phonemic information. Extensions of the artificial lexicon paradigm and developmental implications are discussed.     

The Role for Occupational Therapists in Community Mobility Training for People With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Symptoms and behaviors of Autism Spectrum Disorders can challenge community mobility, thus hindering independence and participation in occupation. Community mobility, also called travel training, helps people make journeys safely using public transportation, enabling engagement in activities/services otherwise unavailable. Yet, few articles have been written about this topic for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. The purpose of the authors in this article is to: (1) explain the need for travel training with people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders; (2) describe specific travel training assessments; (3) review literature on travel training programs; and (4) define a role for occupational therapy in travel training with individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders.     

Social value orientation and intelligence: A test of the goal prescribes rationality principle

The present study examines the influence of pre-existing individual differences in social value orentations, or preferences for certain patterns of outcomes to oneself and others (McClintock, 1978), on perceptions of rationality in a social dilemma. In Experiment 1 conducted in Groningen (the Netherlands), it was found that people with pro-social orientations expected more cooperation from another described as intelligent than from another described as unintelligent, whereas individualists and competitors expected relatively more cooperation from another described as unintelligent. The cross-cultural generalizability of this finding was examined and supported in Experiment 2 which was conducted in Santa Barbara (U.S.A.). Results from both studies are consistent with the Goal Prescribes Rationality Principle (Van Lange, Liebrand and Kuhlman, 1990) which assumes that people with pro-social (cooperative) orientations would perceive rationality in social dilemmas primarily from the collective perspective, whereas individualists and competitors would take a strong egocentric perspective on rationality. In addition, we found a strong relationship between expectations of other's cooperation and own cooperative behaviour when the other was described as intelligent. The strength of this relationship was reduced, particularly for individualists and competitors, when the other person was described as unintelligent.     

Can hearing puter activate pupil? Phonological competition and the processing of reduced spoken words in spontaneous conversations

In listeners' daily communicative exchanges, they most often hear casual speech, in which words are often produced with fewer segments, rather than the careful speech used in most psycholinguistic experiments. Three experiments examined phonological competition during the recognition of reduced forms such as [pjut?r] for computer using a target-absent variant of the visual world paradigm. Listeners' eye movements were tracked upon hearing canonical and reduced forms as they looked at displays of four printed words. One of the words was phonologically similar to the canonical pronunciation of the target word, one word was similar to the reduced pronunciation, and two words served as unrelated distractors. When spoken targets were presented in isolation (Experiment 1) and in sentential contexts (Experiment 2), competition was modulated as a function of the target word form. When reduced targets were presented in sentential contexts, listeners were probabilistically more likely to first fixate reduced-form competitors before shifting their eye gaze to canonical-form competitors. Experiment 3, in which the original /p/ from [pjut?r] was replaced with a “real” onset /p/, showed an effect of cross-splicing in the late time window. We conjecture that these results fit best with the notion that speech reductions initially activate competitors that are similar to the phonological surface form of the reduction, but that listeners nevertheless can exploit fine phonetic detail to reconstruct strongly reduced forms to their canonical counterparts.     

On the Nature of Semantic Constraints on Lexical Access

We present two eye-tracking experiments that investigate lexical frequency and semantic context constraints in spoken-word recognition in German. In both experiments, the pivotal words were pairs of nouns overlapping at onset but varying in lexical frequency. In Experiment 1, German listeners showed an expected frequency bias towards high-frequency competitors (e.g., Blume, 'flower') when instructed to click on low-frequency targets (e.g., Bluse, 'blouse'). In Experiment 2, semantically constraining context increased the availability of appropriate low-frequency target words prior to word onset, but did not influence the availability of semantically inappropriate high-frequency competitors at the same time. Immediately after target word onset, however, the activation of high-frequency competitors was reduced in semantically constraining sentences, but still exceeded that of unrelated distractor words significantly. The results suggest that (1) semantic context acts to downgrade activation of inappropriate competitors rather than to exclude them from competition, and (2) semantic context influences spoken-word recognition, over and above anticipation of upcoming referents.     

Neural activity reveals effects of aging on inhibitory processes during word retrieval

Word retrieval difficulties are one of the most frustrating problems for older adults. Poorer access to phonological representation of the target word has been postulated as the underlying deficit, supported by findings of improved word retrieval after phonological priming. To better understand aging effects in the underlying neurophysiology associated with word retrieval, this study examined electrophysiological correlates of phonological priming and word retrieval in adults. Young, middle-aged, and older adults viewed pictures that were preceded by pseudo-word primes that either shared initial phonemes with or were unrelated to the picture’s name. Participants made phonological judgments regarding the prime and picture prior to naming the picture. Behavioral and event-related potential correlates of phonological priming and word retrieval were recorded. All groups benefitted similarly from phonological priming, evidenced by faster phonological judgment response times and increased ease of word retrieval for primed pictures, indexed by the N400 priming effect. The peak latency of the N2, however, showed an incremental delay with age. High correlation between N2 peak latency and clinical measures of inhibition suggested an age-related delay in the inhibition of primed lexical competitors. Taken together, our results indicated intact activation of phonological representation of the picture’s name but age-related delays in inhibition of primed competitors. Interestingly, our findings revealed that delays in inhibiting lexical competitors may begin as early as middle age, highlighting the importance of including multiple age groups to better represent the aging trajectory.     

Social Value Orientation and Helping Behavior1

The present study investigated the relationship between people's social value orientations and helping behavior. Subjects dassified a priori as either cooperators, individualists, or competitors were mailed a request to volunteer from zero to ten hours of their time to a worthy cause. Subjects were asked to indicate on their response forms the number of hours, if any, that they wished to contribute and to retum these forms using an enclosed self-addressed envelope regardless of whether they intended to donate any hours. The results revealed that subjects of all three social value orientations were equally likely to comply to the small request to return their response forms. However, the number of hours that subjects contributed differed as a function of their social values. As predicted, cooperators contributed significantly more of their time to the cause than did individualists and competitors. We relate these findings to previous research on social values and helping behavior.     

Accuracy of Reported Community Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder

To compare community diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) reported by parents to consensus diagnoses made using standardized tools plus clinical observation. 87 participants (85% male, average age 7.4 years), with reported community diagnosis of ASD were evaluated using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) (ADOS-2), Differential Ability Scale (DAS-II), and Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS-II). Detailed developmental and medical history was obtained from all participants. Diagnosis was based on clinical consensus of at least two expert clinicians, using test results, clinical observations, and parent report. 23% of participants with a reported community diagnosis of ASD were classified as non-spectrum based on our consensus diagnosis. ASD and non-spectrum participants did not differ on age at evaluation and age of first community diagnosis. Non-verbal IQ scores and Adaptive Behavior Composite scores were significantly higher in the non-spectrum group compared to the ASD group (104.5?±?21.7 vs. 80.1?±?21.6, p?<?.01; 71.1?±?15 versus 79.5?±?17.6, p?<?.05, respectively). Participants enrolled with community diagnosis of PDD-NOS were significantly more likely to be classified as non-spectrum on the study consensus diagnosis than Participants with Autism or Asperger (36% versus 9.5%, Odds Ratio?=?5.4, p?<?.05). This study shows suboptimal agreement between community diagnoses of ASD and consensus diagnosis using standardized instruments. These findings are based on limited data, and should be further studied, taking into consideration the influence of DSM 5 diagnostic criteria on ASD prevalence.     

自闭症谱系障碍者面孔识别的神经机制

自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种心理状况的谱系障碍,其症状是社交及沟通上的广泛性异常、异常局限性的兴趣和高度重复性的刻板行为。包括自闭症、亚斯伯格症候群和待分类的广泛性发展障碍3类。研究主要以事件相关电位和功能性磁共振成像两种技术为线索,通过深入分析ASD患者在面孔识别认知过程中脑的异常变化,探讨其面孔识别障碍的神经机制问题。研究表明,ASD患者面孔识别能力的损伤主要与N170、N300、P400和Nc等ERPs成份异常及梭状回面孔区和杏仁核的低激活有关。研究推论ASD患者面孔识别障碍是多个异常脑区联合作用的结果,且主要受异常脑区的数量和损伤程度的影响。     

孤独症的认知障碍研究及其评述

执行功能紊乱理论(Theory of Executive Dysfunction)、弱的中央统合理论(Weak Central Coherence theory)和心理理论假说(The Theory of Mind Hypothesis)是解释孤独症认知障碍的三种重要理论。本文着重通过回顾以往的实验研究来探讨三种理论的产生、发展及前进的方向, 以及三大理论之间的关系。三者可能从不同侧面诠释了孤独症认知障碍的机制, 如何综合起来更好地揭示孤独症的认知障碍和病理机制, 尚需深入和全面的研究。同时更多地考虑不同认知因素的交互影响以及研究的生态学效度, 可能是进一步研究需要考虑的问题。     

Confidence in expectations: A test of the triangle hypothesis

Kelley and Stahelski's (1970) triangle hypothesis states that competitors hold homogeneous views of others by assuming that most others are competitive, whereas cooperators or pro-social people hold more heterogeneous views by assuming that others are either cooperative or competitive. To evaluate the triangle hypothesis, this study examines differences between pro-socials, individualists, and competitors not only in their expectations about others' choice behaviour, but also in the confidence with which such expectations are held. It was found that pro-social subjects expected more cooperation than individualists and competitors. More importantly, as predicted on the basis of the triangle hypothesis, pro-socials were less confident about their expectations than competitors, with individualists holding intermediate levels of confidence.