{"id":303,"date":"2020-04-21T17:14:53","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T16:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-rocs\/?p=303"},"modified":"2020-08-21T14:08:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:08:17","slug":"representing-intentions-in-self-and-other-studies-of-autism-and-typical-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/representing-intentions-in-self-and-other-studies-of-autism-and-typical-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Representing intentions in self and other: studies of autism and typical development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Find more about the Kent author\u00a0here<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Find the full paper here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

About<\/span><\/b>\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

To understand the distinction between an action and an accident, a person needs to recognize the intentions that underlie behavior. In typical development, infants as young as 18-months olds start to show some understanding of intentional and accidental behavior. <\/span>However, research suggests that children do not fully and explicitly understand intentional behavior until they develop Theory of Mind (<\/span>ToM, <\/span>the ability to represent and understand one\u2019s own and others\u2019 beliefs and intentions), typically around the age of 4 to 5 years old.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A large body of research suggests that Autism Spectrum Disorder<\/span> (ASD)<\/span> is characterized by impairments in ToM, which is further evidenced by everyday social and communicative difficulties. <\/span>Research on representing intentions in individuals with ASD has yielded mixed results, which is potentially caused by methodological shortcomings.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The current study therefore assessed the explicit awareness children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children have <\/span>of their own and others\u2019 intentions with an improved methodological design.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Research Objectives<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0To explore the extent to which individuals with ASD, as we<\/span>ll as TD <\/span>children, are explicitly aware of their own and others\u2019 intentions.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0To investigate how the ability to represent intentions relates to ToM.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Programme and Methodology<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Participants were children with ASD, comparison children with developmental delay and typically developing children.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Experiment 1:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Participants completed the Knee-Jerk Task & ToM\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Experiment 2:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Participants completed the Transparent Intentions Task & ToM<\/span><\/p>\n

Findings<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0In Experiment 1, participants with ASD were significantly less likely than comparison participants to correctly recognize their own knee-jerk reflex movements as unintentional.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0In Experiment 2, <\/span>participants with ASD were significantly less able than comparison participants to correctly recognize their own and another person\u2019s mistaken actions as unintended.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Performance on both tasks was related to Theory of Mind (the ability to represent one\u2019s own and others\u2019 beliefs and intentions).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Impact<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2022 \u00a0This project offers\u00a0<\/span>new and important insight<\/span><\/b> on <\/span>the representation of intentions in individuals with ASD. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0 Individuals with ASD have limited awareness of their own and others\u2019 intentions and such an awa<\/span>reness requires Theory of Mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0Some degree of diminished self-awareness in ASD.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0The findings offer<\/span>\u00a0clear and practical suggestions for educators<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 \u00a0The notion that intention representation for both the self and others is impaired can help educators understand individuals with ASD and their behaviour better.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Find more about the Kent author\u00a0here Find the full paper here About\u202f\u00a0 To understand the distinction between an action and an accident, a person needs to recognize the intentions that underlie behavior. In typical development, infants as young as 18-months olds start to show some understanding of intentional and accidental behavior. However, research suggests that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/610"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2820,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/2820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/rocs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}