Self-processing and social functioning in autistic preschoolers.

There is evidence of weak self-processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including diminished self-reference effects (SREs) in memory. Because smaller SREs in older ASD children and adults are sometimes associated with worse social functioning, we examined this relation for the first time in ASD preschoolers (n = 21). Following a self-performed task, children completed tests of self/other source memory, verbal ability, imitation and mentalizing. Although the ASD children were outperformed on the socio-cognitive measures by non-autistic preschoolers (n = 20), they still showed a significant SRE. Moreover, the SRE, but not the socio-cognitive variables, was a significant predictor of children's social functioning as rated by parents. Larger SREs were linked with better social functioning, while children with stronger autism traits showed no memory advantage for information encoded self-referentially. These findings support previous research showing that self-processing impairments in ASD are mainly apparent for individuals with greater social difficulties.

Gender bias in autism screening: measurement invariance of different model frameworks of the Autism Spectrum Quotient.

BACKGROUND: The Autism Spectrum Quotient is a popular autism screening tool recommended for identifying potential cases of autism. However, many women with autism demonstrate a different presentation of traits to those currently captured by screening measures and assessment methods, such as the Autism Spectrum Quotient. AIMS: Different models of the Autism Spectrum Quotient have been proposed in the literature, utilising different items from the original 50-item scale. Within good-fitting models, the current study aimed to explore whether these items assess autistic traits similarly across men and women. METHOD: Seventeen Autism Spectrum Quotient models were identified from the literature. Using the responses of a large sample of adults from the UK general population (5246 women, 1830 men), confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the fit of each model. Measurement invariance with respect to gender, adjusting for age, was explored in the 11 model frameworks that were found to have satisfactory fit to our data. RESULTS: It emerged that only two items were gender invariant (non-biased), whereas for the remaining items, the probability of endorsement was influenced by gender. In particular, women had a higher probability of endorsing items relating to social skills and communication. CONCLUSIONS: If the items of the Autism Spectrum Quotient indeed reflect autism-related traits, those items should be rephrased to ensure they do not present a gender-related bias. This is vital for ensuring more timely diagnoses and support for all people with autism.

Shining a Light on a Hidden Population: Social Functioning and Mental Health in Women Reporting Autistic Traits But Lacking Diagnosis.

Female Phenotype Theory (FPT) suggests that autistic women often present with less obvious social impairments than autistic men. We examined the possibility of an exaggerated female phenotype among undiagnosed but probably autistic women. In two nationwide online surveys, we compared self-reported social functioning and mental health between diagnosed autistic women and women without diagnosis who scored ≥ 32 on the Autism Quotient. Compared to diagnosed autistic women, probably autistic women had higher empathy and general social functioning, and were more likely to have received a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. Autistic women had typically received more mental health diagnoses prior to their ASC diagnosis than autistic men. These findings shed light on the history of misdiagnosis experienced by many autistic women.

Metamemory for involuntary autobiographical memories and semantic mind-pops in 5-, 7- and 9-year-old children and young adults.

In a cross-sectional study, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old-children and adults (N = 144, 86 females, predominantly White U.K. sample of lower-middle to middle-class background) were interviewed about their experiences of involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and semantic mind-pops that come to mind unintentionally. Although some age differences emerged, the majority of participants in all age groups claimed familiarity with involuntary memories and provided examples from their own experience. Moreover, the self-reported frequency of IAMs and mind-pops was high, and reported IAMs usually referred to incidental environmental triggers, whereas reported mind-pops did not. This age invariance highlights the ubiquity of involuntary memories across development and opens up interesting avenues for developmental research on involuntary memories and other spontaneous phenomena (e.g., mind-wandering, future thinking).

Camouflaging Intent, First Impressions, and Age of ASC Diagnosis in Autistic Men and Women.

Camouflaging of autistic traits may make autism harder to diagnose. The current study evaluated the relations between camouflaging intent, first impressions, and age of autism diagnosis. Participants comprised autistic and non-autistic adults (n = 80, 50% female) who completed the Camouflaging of Autistic Traits Questionnaire. They were later video-recorded having a conversation with a person unaware of their diagnostic status. Ten-second clips from half these videos were later shown to 127 non-autistic peers, who rated their first impressions of each participant. Results showed that autistic participants were rated more poorly on first impressions, males were rated less favourably than females, and male raters were particularly harsh in their evaluations of autistic males. Camouflaging intent did not predict first impressions but better first impressions were linked with a later age of diagnosis.

Exploring individual differences in self-reference effects for agency and ownership in 5- to 7-year-olds.

Evidence that self-relevant information enjoys a privileged status in memory is termed the self-reference effect (SRE). Testing 5-to 7-year-olds (n = 39), we aimed to shed light on the SRE by examining the memorial advantage for self-relevant information as a function of general ability, theory of mind, empathy, and recollection. Playing in pairs, children were presented with an array of pictures and took turns to select pictures (agency) and turn them over to reveal to whom they belonged (ownership). Later, they viewed the studied pictures intermixed with new ones and provided recognition- and source memory judgements. There was a robust SRE in recognition memory, mainly for agency, which varied positively with intellectual ability but negatively with theory of mind, empathy, and recollection. These findings accord with claims that self-referential information benefits from elaboration handled by domain-general processes, with the SRE counteracted by social processes that increase attention to other people. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Self-referential information is remembered better than information with little or no personal relevance (the self-reference effect or SRE) Children as young as 4 years show the SRE in tests of recognition- and source memory What does this study add? We explored individual differences variables correlated with the SRE in 5-7 year olds The SRE showed a positive relation with general intellectual ability but negative relations with empathy, theory of mind and recollection We suggest that self-referential information benefits from elaboration handled by domain-general processes, with the SRE counteracted by social processes that increase attention to other people.

Impaired prospective memory but intact episodic memory in intellectually average 7- to 9-year-olds born very preterm and/or very low birth weight.

Relatively little is known about episodic memory (EM: memory for personally-experienced events) and prospective memory (PM: memory for intended actions) in children born very preterm (VP) or with very low birth weight (VLBW). This study evaluates EM and PM in mainstream-schooled 7- to 9-year-olds born VP (≤ 32 weeks) and/or VLBW (< 1500 g) and matches full-term children for comparison (n = 35 and n = 37, respectively). Additionally, participants were assessed for verbal and non-verbal ability, executive function (EF), and theory of mind (ToM). The results show that the VP/VLBW children were outperformed by the full-term children on the memory tests overall, with a significant univariate group difference in PM. Moreover, within the VP/VLBW group, the measures of PM, verbal ability and working memory all displayed reliable negative correlations with severity of neonatal illness. PM was found to be independent of EM and cognitive functioning, suggesting that this form of memory might constitute a domain of specific vulnerability for VP/VLBW children.

Exploring social influences on the joint Simon task: empathy and friendship.

Tasks for which people must act together to achieve a goal are a feature of daily life. The present study explored social influences on joint action using a Simon procedure for which participants (n = 44) were confronted with a series of images of hands and asked to respond via button press whenever the index finger wore a ring of a certain color (red or green) regardless of pointing direction (left or right). In an initial joint condition they performed the task while sitting next to another person (friend or stranger) who responded to the other color. In a subsequent individual condition they repeated the task on their own; additionally, they completed self-report tests of empathy. Consistent with past research, participants reacted more quickly when the finger pointed toward them rather than their co-actor (the Simon Effect or SE). The effect remained robust when the co-actor was no longer present and was unaffected by degree of acquaintance; however, its magnitude was correlated positively with empathy only among friends. For friends, the SE was predicted by cognitive perspective taking when the co-actor was present and by propensity for fantasizing when the co-actor was absent. We discuss these findings in relation to social accounts (e.g., task co-representation) and non-social accounts (e.g., referential coding) of joint action.

Metamemory prediction accuracy for simple prospective and retrospective memory tasks in 5-year-old children.

It is well documented that young children greatly overestimate their performance on tests of retrospective memory (RM), but the current investigation is the first to examine children's prediction accuracy for prospective memory (PM). Three studies were conducted, each testing a different group of 5-year-olds. In Study 1 (N=46), participants were asked to predict their success in a simple event-based PM task (remembering to convey a message to a toy mole if they encountered a particular picture during a picture-naming activity). Before naming the pictures, children listened to either a reminder story or a neutral story. Results showed that children were highly accurate in their PM predictions (78% accuracy) and that the reminder story appeared to benefit PM only in children who predicted they would remember the PM response. In Study 2 (N=80), children showed high PM prediction accuracy (69%) regardless of whether the cue was specific or general and despite typical overoptimism regarding their performance on a 10-item RM task using item-by-item prediction. Study 3 (N=35) showed that children were prone to overestimate RM even when asked about their ability to recall a single item-the mole's unusual name. In light of these findings, we consider possible reasons for children's impressive PM prediction accuracy, including the potential involvement of future thinking in performance predictions and PM.

Family influences on the cognitive development of profoundly deaf children: exploring the effects of socioeconomic status and siblings.

We evaluated the cognitive development of 48 profoundly deaf children from hearing families (born 1994-2002, mean age M = 8.0 years at time of test, none of whom had received early auditory-verbal therapy) as a function of family socioeconomic status and number of siblings. Overall, the deaf children matched a younger group of 47 hearing controls (M = 4.6 years) on verbal ability, theory of mind, and cognitive inhibition. Partial correlations (controlling for age) revealed positive relations in the hearing group between maternal education and inhibition, between number of younger siblings and references to emotions, and between number of close-in-age siblings and references to desires and false beliefs. In the deaf group, there were positive relations between household income and memory span, between maternal education and references to false beliefs, and between number of younger siblings and nonverbal ability. In contrast, deaf children with a greater number of older siblings aged ≤12 years showed inferior memory span, inhibition, belief understanding, picture-sequencing accuracy, and mental-state language, suggesting that they failed to compete successfully with older siblings for their parents' attention and material resources. We consider the implications of the findings for understanding birth-order effects on deaf and language-impaired children.

Executive and theory-of-mind contributions to event-based prospective memory in children: exploring the self-projection hypothesis.

In two studies, 4- to 6-year-olds were asked to name pictures of animals for the benefit of a watching hand puppet (the ongoing task) but to refrain from naming and to remove from view any pictures of dogs (the prospective memory [PM] task). Children also completed assessments of verbal ability, cognitive inhibition, working memory, and false-belief understanding (both studies), empathy (Study 1 only), and performance on false-sign tests that matched the false-belief tests in narrative content and structure (Study 2 only). Both studies found that inhibition and false-belief performance made unique contributions to the variance in PM, although in Study 1 the influence of inhibition was evident only when children needed to withhold naming. Study 2 further demonstrated that false-belief performance was the only reliable predictor of whether children remembered to return to the researcher an object that had been loaned to them prior to the picture-naming game. Both experiments uncovered moderate relations between PM and chronological age, but such relations were rarely significant after taking account of cognitive ability. We consider the implications of the findings for (a) current views regarding frontal/executive contributions to PM development and (b) the suggestion that the same brain network underlies various forms of mental self-projection, including envisioning the future and understanding the minds of other people.

Executive function in 7-9-year-old children born extremely preterm or with extremely low birth weight: effects of biomedical history, age at assessment, and socioeconomic status.

Forty-five children born extremely preterm and/or with extremely low birth weight (ELBW), who were of average intelligence, were assessed at age 7-9 on a raft of measures of executive function (EF) designed to assess inhibition, set shifting, planning, fluency, and working memory. Relative to 45 full-term controls, the preterm/ELBW children showed reliable impairments of inhibition, fluency, and working memory. Among the 7-year olds, the preterm/ELBW group also showed significantly worse set shifting. After controlling for age and family socioeconomic status (SES), within-group analyses of the preterm/ELBW data revealed that higher birth weights were associated with better inhibition, whereas lower neurobiological risk (gauged by such aspects of neonatal medical history as a number of days on oxygen) was associated with better planning. Moreover, there were interactions between neurobiological risk and SES on the measures of inhibition, fluency, and working memory, indicating that the adverse effects of risk were greater among children from low-income households. These findings demonstrate that neonatal medical problems are associated with considerable variability in EF among normally developing preterm/ELBW children and implicate an important influence of the family environment on the maturation of EF.

Empathy, theory of mind, and individual differences in the appropriation bias among 4- and 5-year-olds.

Evidence that young children often claim ownership of their partner's contributions to an earlier collaborative activity, the appropriation bias, has been attributed to shared intentionality (Cognitive Development (1998) 13, 91-108). The current investigation explored this notion by examining individual differences in the bias among 4- and 5-year-olds as a function of empathy and theory of mind. On two occasions, children joined an adult and two dolls (with each doll being operated by one of the humans) in a picture matching board game before being asked to remember who placed each picture. Children showed a robust appropriation bias despite excellent recognition memory for the studied pictures (Study 1) and particularly in relation to the human sources (Study 2). Whereas higher levels of self-reported empathy were associated with a greater frequency of appropriation errors and fewer correct attributions for pictures placed by the adult and her doll partner, the opposite pattern emerged for theory of mind. Moreover, the positive relations between theory of mind and source monitoring accuracy remained robust after controlling for general ability and inhibitory skills. We consider the implications of these findings for understanding the processes driving the appropriation bias.

Remember to forget: ERP evidence for inhibition in an item-method directed forgetting paradigm.

The present study examined the electrophysiological correlates of intentional forgetting using the item-method directed forgetting paradigm. Participants (N=23) studied a series of words each followed by either a "remember" cue (TBR) or a "forget" cue (TBF) and then undertook an old/new recognition memory test for which they were requested to endorse studied items regardless of original remember/forget status. Event-related potentials time locked to the cues were examined as a function of subsequent recognition-memory accuracy. Results showed that TBR and TBF cues elicited Dm or subsequent memory effects that differed in scalp distribution and polarity, suggesting activation of fundamentally different encoding operations for the respective sets of items. Additionally, analyses that examined the processes underlying successful implementations of intentions to forget (i.e., TBF-miss vs. TBR-miss) and intentions to remember (i.e., TBR-hit vs. TBF-hit) revealed that in case of unwanted information a frontal inhibition mechanism is engaged to stop processes associated with intentional memory formation. These results counter the possibility that directed forgetting reflects only the more elaborate encoding of TBR than TBF words and, instead, implicate the existence of an active inhibitory mechanism directed at TBF words once the forget cue is presented.

Directed forgetting in direct and indirect tests of memory: seeking evidence of retrieval inhibition using electrophysiological measures.

We investigated whether directed forgetting as elicited by the item-cueing method results solely from differential rehearsal of to-be-remembered vs. to-be-forgotten words or, additionally, from inhibitory processes that actively impair retrieval of to-be-forgotten words. During study, participants (N=24) were instructed to remember half of a series of presented words (TBR) and to forget the other half (TBF), as indicated by an instruction cue shown shortly after each word. During test, accuracy and reaction time measures from lexical decisions (indirect memory test) followed by recognition-memory judgements (direct memory test) were supplemented with event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Results from the behavioural measures revealed directed forgetting in the recognition-memory test but not the lexical-decision test. ERPs obtained during recognition indicated that TBR words elicited a larger parietal old/new effect than TBF words overall, suggesting that remember/forget instructions impaired conscious recollection processes more severely than familiarity processes. Moreover, TBF words that were successfully forgotten elicited less parietal activity than correctly rejected new words (the reversed old/new effect; Nowicka, A., Jednorórog, K., Wypych, M., & Marchewka, A. (2009). Reversed old/new effect for intentionally forgotten words: An ERP study of directed forgetting. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71, 97-102). This was taken to implicate that inhibitory processes likely affected these items. Enhanced negativities for successfully forgotten TBF words relative to new words were observed in the lexical-decision task at early (150-250 ms) and late (800-1000 ms) time windows, suggesting that inhibitory influences disrupt more than just conscious recollection when memory retrieval is tested indirectly.

Parent-delivered compensatory education for children at risk of educational failure: Improving the academic and self-regulatory skills of a Sure Start preschool sample.

Thirty preschoolers from low-income families participated in a 12-month intervention programme, funded by Sure Start, which engaged them in scaffolded educational activities delivered at home by their mothers. Immediately following the programme, the intervention group outperformed matched controls in tests of academic knowledge, receptive vocabulary, and inhibitory control, but not short-term memory or theory of mind. Teachers' ratings of children's capabilities upon school entry favoured the intervention group, especially in terms of listening, responding, writing, mathematics, and personal/social skills. Superior inhibitory control, short-term memory, and numerical skills were associated with higher ratings whereas theory of mind made a unique, negative contribution to responding. We discuss the implications of these findings for efforts to nurture the development of cognitive self-regulation and school readiness during early childhood.

Language and theory-of-mind development in prelingually deafened children with cochlear implants: a preliminary investigation.

One cognitive domain in which deaf children are known to lag behind their hearing peers is that of 'theory of mind'. Impoverished early conversational experience and deprivation of discussion about intangible mental states are seen as likely contributors to this deficit. The present study explored the relation between language and theory-of-mind capabilities in prelingually deafened children aged 4 to 11 years who were cochlear implant users. The children completed theory-of-mind tasks that indexed their ability to reason about conflicting mental representations, namely the understanding of false belief and the distinction between appearance and reality. Controlling for age, language ability was found to correlate positively and reliably with theory-of-mind performance.