What Makes a Good Theory?
The ability to recognize, represent, and interpret the mental states (i.e. beliefs and intentions) of others.
What is mentalizing or Theory of Mind
An account first introduced by Frith, Leslie, and Baron-Cohen in 1985 which suggested that "a meta-representational deficit" was the defining feature of autism
What is the Theory of Mind model?
A group of theories that suggest that "early, subtle differences in the child's relationship with their environment place an unusual developmental pathway that leads to a pattern that makes up the diagnostic features of autism"
What are developmental trajectory models?
This account attributes both the strengths and challenges of autism to the tendency to attend to and recall "local details" but not to put them together to form a unified whole. This theory "suggests that autistic perception, attention, and memory are free from such contextual constraints." It "represents a bias not a deficit" - i.e., autistic people can see the whole, but it takes effort.
What is the weak central coherence model?
Differences in ______ integration could explain the differences found in processing multiple types of input at once AND the observed hyper- and hypo-sensitivity of autistic individuals.
What is sensory?
Propositional attitudes (i.e. believing, pretending, intending), emotions and emotional drives (happiness, sadness; desires and emotional needs), and interoceptive states (hunger, pain, tiredness, etc.) are what?
What are mental states
The phenomenon wherein typically developing individuals display many of the same behaviors as autistic individuals when they are not part of a certain group.
What are in-group, out-group effects?
These 2 characteristics are associated with being diagnosed with autism later in life.
What are 1) being female and 2)having better language.
This account "proposes that the perceptual systems of autistic people may out-perform their neurotypical peers...the theory predicts superiority in local processing, without a parallel difficulty at the global processing level." This theory inspired the use of drawing tasks to estimate IQ of autistic individuals, which resulted in "much higher estimates of ability than a traditional IQ test."
What is the enhanced perceptual process model?
Information processing models of autism are not great at explaining the _______ characteristics of autism while social-cognitive models are not great at explaining the _______ characteristics of autism.
What are social, RRBI/sensory?
"A term to describe problems with expressing emotions. In Greek, it loosely translates to “no words for emotion.” It is estimated that 1 in 10 people has this characteristic, but it is much more common in those with depression and in autistic people." Has been "linked to altered interoception, as part of a wider difficulty identifying how you feel inside."
What is alexithymia
These two explanations account for why some autistic people pass TOM tasks.
What are 1) people may grow out of differences seen in childhood and 2) people can learn strategies to address theory of mind tasks?
This account supposes that a basic mechanism that prioritizes attention to social content...is disrupted in autism. Children pay less special attention to social information, which results in missed learning opportunities, which in turn results in lack of understanding and skill in social world, which results in non-social activities being more enjoyable.
What is the social orienting hypothesis.
This account relates to how information from multiple sources is integrated in the brain and was "developed by autistic academics." It suggests that the defining feature of autism is atypical allocation of attention." In other words, autistic individuals have a few, deeply intense interests vs. several less deep interests. "To the extent that social interaction requires diffuse and distributed attention, autistic people are not well suited to that activity." Not currently backed by much empirical evidence, but has support from within the autistic community.
What is monotropism?
The idea that "successful interaction requires the participation of two people" and points out that when autistic and neurotypical individuals were given a modified AQ, both groups appeared more autistic when given the test that didn't align with their groups. Stated differently, in-group/out-group effects might explain much of autism.
What is the "double empathy" problem?
May be a "way to screen out unwanted input by overwhelming the system with self-stimulatory behavior"
What are RRBIs
These three challenges have been made to the theory of mind model. They object to the fact that TOM doesn't explain why some autistics can pass false belief tests, TOM difficulties are found in other groups besides autism, and the fact that it is difficult to pinpoint "the point in the developmental process at which the autistic and non-autistic pathways divide.
What are universality, specificity, and primacy?
This theory suggests that autistic infants do not have the innate mechanism that makes social information inherently rewarding as it is for neurotypical infants. This results in a chain reaction that results in the autistic social profile.
What is the social motivation hypothesis?
Based on the idea that autistic individuals are poor at empathizing, but good at systemizing; that they prefer finding order in things and are good at analytical tasks and making systems vs. understanding/taking an interest in emotional/feeling tasks. Both the assumptions and the empirical data supporting this theory are hotly contended.
What are empathizing and systemizing accounts?
According to the social model of autism, it is inappropriate to enforce neurotypical social behaviors such as ____ ______ in therapy (unless an autistic individual wants to address it) because this reinforces the neurotypical way as the "best" way of socializing.
What is eye contact?
Six things to look for in a good autism theory
1. Concrete predictions, which generate rigorous tests
2. an interpretation, not just a simple description, of the evidence
3. Detailed explanation of the pattern of characteristics in the autism constellation
4. A causal account
5. Alignment with basic scientific truths, including what we know about typical development
6. informed by community perspectives and priorities
This model was developed by one of the authors of the text (Happé) and is subtly plugged throughout the book (IMO). It posits that "autism is a composite of different and somewhat independent behavioral aspects, that have different origins at the biological and/or cognitive levels."
What is the fractionated triad account?
see pgs. 41-42, 95,96
This account suggested that autism is "primarily rooted in an affective and interpersonal difference. Differences in the ability to perceive and respond to the affective expressions of others were hypothesized to lead to atypical social experiences in infancy and childhood, which in turn impacted later social understanding."
What are intersubjectivity accounts?
Also called the "predictive coding model," this account suggests that the autistic brain makes models, or "priors," of given situations that are either over-specified or under-specified (due to over-relying on past experience, or failing to take it enough into account), which results in them being poorly suited to predict future experiences - there will be a mismatch of some kind. Not well-backed by robust evidence at this time.
What are Bayesian accounts?
Counter to popular/traditional notions, this action can provide comfort, understanding, and ultimately increased awareness for both autistic and non-autistic individuals.
What is disclosing autism diagnosis/explaining reasons behind autistic characteristics and/or behaviors?