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Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. The syndrome is no longer recognized as a diagnosis in itself, having been merged with other conditions into autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It was considered to differ from other diagnoses that were merged into ASD by relatively unimpaired spoken language and intelligence.
Sir Simon Philip Baron-Cohen is a British clinical psychologist and professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge. He is the director of the university's Autism Research Centre and a Fellow of Trinity College. In 1985, Baron-Cohen formulated the mindblindness theory of autism, the evidence for which he collated and published in 1995. In 1997, he formulated the foetal sex steroid theory of autism, the key test of which was published in 2015.
The UC Davis MIND Institute is a research and treatment center affiliated with the University of California, Davis, with facilities located on the UC Davis Medical Center campus in Sacramento, California. The institute is a consortium of scientists, educators, physicians and parents dedicated to researching the causes of and treatments for autism spectrum disorders, fragile X syndrome, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. The director of the MIND institute is Dr. Leonard Abbeduto.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to autism:
Mind-blindness, mindblindness or mind blindness is a theory initially proposed in 1990 that claims that all autistic people have a lack or developmental delay of theory of mind (ToM), meaning they are unable to attribute mental states to others. According to the theory, a lack of ToM is considered equivalent to a lack of both cognitive and affective empathy. In the context of the theory, mind-blindness implies being unable to predict behavior and attribute mental states including beliefs, desires, emotions, or intentions of other people. The mind-blindness theory asserts that children who delay in this development will often develop autism.
The Sally–Anne test is a psychological test, used in developmental psychology to measure a person's social cognitive ability to attribute false beliefs to others. The flagship implementation of the Sally–Anne test was by Simon Baron-Cohen, Alan M. Leslie, and Uta Frith (1985); in 1988, Leslie and Frith repeated the experiment with human actors and found similar results.
Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of neurological disorders that affect the development of the nervous system, leading to abnormal brain function which may affect emotion, learning ability, self-control, and memory. The effects of neurodevelopmental disorders tend to last for a person's lifetime.
The empathising–systemising (E–S) theory is a theory on the psychological basis of autism and male–female neurological differences originally put forward by English clinical psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. It classifies individuals based on abilities in empathic thinking (E) and systematic thinking (S). It measures skills using an Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Systemising Quotient (SQ) and attempts to explain the social and communication symptoms in autism spectrum disorders as deficits and delays in empathy combined with intact or superior systemising.
The weak central coherence theory (WCC), also called the central coherence theory (CC), suggests that a specific perceptual-cognitive style, loosely described as a limited ability to understand context or to "see the big picture", underlies the central disturbance in autism and related autism spectrum disorders. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, as well as repetitive behaviours and restricted interests.
Dame Uta Frith is a German-British developmental psychologist at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She has pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia. She has written several books on these subjects, arguing for autism to be seen as a mental condition rather than as one caused by parenting. Her Autism: Explaining the Enigma introduces the cognitive neuroscience of autism. She is credited with creating the Sally–Anne test along with fellow scientists Alan Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen. She also pioneered the work on child dyslexia. Among students she has mentored are Tony Attwood, Maggie Snowling, Simon Baron-Cohen and Francesca Happé.
Annette Karmiloff-Smith CBE FBA FMedSci (1938–2016) was a professorial research fellow at the Developmental Neurocognition Lab at Birkbeck, University of London. Before moving to Birbeck, she was Head of the Neurocognitive Development Unit at Institute of Child Health, University College, London. She was an expert in developmental disorders, with a particular interest in Williams syndrome.
Stephen W. Porges is an American psychologist and neuroscientist. He is the Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Porges is also currently Director of the Kinsey Institute Traumatic Stress Research Consortium at Indiana University Bloomington, which studies trauma. He was previously a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he was director of the Brain-Body Center at the College of Medicine, and at the University of Maryland.
Francesca Gabrielle Elizabeth Happé is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. Her research concerns autism spectrum conditions, specifically the understanding social cognitive processes in these conditions.
Katya Rubia is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, both part of the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.
Charles A. Nelson III is an American neuroscientist and psychologist. His international projects include a long-standing project on institutionalized children in Romania, children growing up in a slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, infants in Puerto Rico exposed to the Zika virus, and children growing up in challenging circumstances in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Nelson has also focused his research efforts on the development of memory and the ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion in infants and young children. Recently, Nelson was recognized for his on-going research with infants and children at high risk for developing autism spectrum disorder.
Marian Diamond Sigman (1941–2012) was a developmental and child clinical psychologist known for her research on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). At the time of her death, she was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Leonard Abbeduto is a psychologist known for his research on individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, including Fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, and Down syndrome, and factors that influence their linguistic development over the lifespan. He is the Tsakopoulos-Vismara Endowed Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Davis. He serves as Director of Research at the Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopment Disorders (MIND) Institute, which was launched in 2001. Prior to his affiliation with the University of California, Davis, Abbeduto was the Associate Director for Behavioral Sciences at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Lucina Q. Uddin is an American cognitive neuroscientist who is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research investigates the relationship between brain connectivity and cognition in typical and atypical development using network neuroscience approaches.
The double empathy problem is a psychological and sociological theory first coined in 2012 by Damian Milton, an autistic autism researcher. This theory proposes that many of the difficulties autistic individuals face when socializing with non-autistic individuals are due, in part, to a lack of mutual understanding between the two groups, meaning that most autistic people struggle to understand and empathize with non-autistic people whereas most non-autistic people also struggle to understand and empathize with autistic people. This lack of understanding may stem from bidirectional differences in communication style, social-cognitive characteristics, and experiences between autistic and non-autistic individuals, but not necessarily an inherent deficiency. Recent studies have shown that most autistic individuals are able to socialize, communicate effectively, empathize well, and display social reciprocity with most other autistic individuals. This theory and subsequent findings challenge the commonly held belief that the social skills of autistic individuals are inherently impaired, as well as the theory of "mind-blindness" proposed by prominent autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen in the mid-1980s, which suggested that empathy and theory of mind are universally impaired in autistic individuals.
Rhea Paul is an American clinical language scientist known for her work in the field of speech-language pathology. She was Founding Chair in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology in the College of Health Professions at Sacred Heart University and a research scientist and affiliate of Haskins Laboratories at Yale University.
References
- 1 2 3 "Lab Director, Research on Autism and Developmental Disorders". Boston University. Archived from the original on December 29, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
- ↑ "Helen Tager-Flusberg, PhD". Boston University. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Hughes, Virginia (November 24, 2011). "Helen Tager-Flusberg: Decoding the language of autism". SFARI: Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Helen Tager-Flusberg, Ph.D., M.I.N.D. Institute Distinguished Lecturer Series" (PDF). MIND Institute. December 12, 2012. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
- 1 2 "Scientific Advisory Board Biographies". Autism Speaks. Archived from the original on January 2, 2014. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
