Seminar in The Network of Danish Researchers in Autism Developmental Disorders

Dermot Bowler: Hippocampally-mediated processing: A potential key to a better
understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Over the years, various attempts have been made to provide explanations about the underlying causes of the specific pattern of behaviour we call autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These have invoked genetic, through neural, neuropsychological and even social mechanisms. In this talk, I will argue that since ASD is a behaviourally defined condition, a  psychological analysis is the best point at which to anchor an explanation but that
psychological accounts must pay due respect to analyses at other levels, such as the social or the biological. I will present evidence, mainly from my lab's work on memory, to make the case that the processes of flexible binding and re-binding of elements of experience, which are crucially dependent on the hippocampus (a structure in the medial
temporal lobe) might help us better to understand people with ASD, and help people with ASD to better understand themselves.

Pernille Skovbo Rasmussen: How health-related quality of life in school-aged
children recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder change over time:
results from a follow-up survey

The number of children being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders is increasing, but the knowledge of well-being of these children and what societal factors positively influence their well-being is lacking. This study provides an insight into the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in 35 school-aged children shortly after being diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, and again 8-10 months later, to examine whether positive development occurs. Furthermore, we describe the impact of initiatives taken in school and at home on HRQoL. We found that in average children showed significantly improved HRQoL at the follow-up period compared to baseline, and that initiatives in school appear to impact the well-being. Further studies to replicate these findings are needed.

Irina Polyanskaya: Second-order false beliefs, language and working memory

Second-order (SO) false belief (FB) competency is an important component of Theory of Mind (TOM). In first-order ToM development, links between language and false belief reasoning have been firmly established and proposed as potential factors in explaining the success of children with ASD who succeed on TOM tasks. However, SOFB development is less studied, and the links between language and SOFB reasoning, as well as the potential developmental role of language, remain unclear. We investigate the relationship of SOFB and several language measures, and in particular, whether competency in linguistic recursion (sentential complements) predicts the ability to reason about other's SOFBs. In addition, we investigate the role of working memory in SOFB development.
The sample consists of Danish speaking children with ASD without ongoing language delays and with working memory within the normal range. Four types of standard SOFB tasks are given. The standardized language measures include the Verbal Comprehension index from WISC-IV and TROG. Linguistic recursion is investigated using a new Danish language tool that measures comprehension of sentential complements. The tool was developed and validated for this study (Cronbach’s alphas 0.56). Working memory is measured by the working memory index from WISC-IV. These measures have been used in a correlation and training study, and in my talk, I would like to present our results.