Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Autism and The triad of impairment
- Definitions
- The National Autistic
Society: 'Complex lifelong
disability, which affects a
person's social and
communication skills',
- Flanagan (2000): 'A
mental disorder
characterized by self
orientation'
- This original analysis
of characteristics of
autism lead to the
modern definition in
DSM-IV
- DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders; Edition 4, this is a book with definitions and
information of all mental disorders that professional
psychologists use) 'a pervasive mental disorder' This means a
severe mental impairment in several areas of development
which starts in early childhood and becomes apparent as the
child begins to develop.
- Autism as a syndrome and
triad of symptoms
- The DSM-IV requires delays or abnormal functioning in at least
one of the following areas, and the onset must be before the age
of 3:
- Language as used in social communication
- Symbolic or imaginative play
- Social interaction
- Key Study: Wing&Gould (1970)
- Aim
- To discover how many children
in a selected population showed
symptoms of autism and
whether these symptoms could
be classified as a syndrome
(tend to occur together)
- Method
- 914 mentally and physically handicapped
children between 0-14 years old were screened
for autistic symptoms
- Most of these children had IQ<70.
- A longitudinal study was carried out in London
- 173 were identified as displaying at least one
of the three behaviours typical of autism and
were studied more closely
- These children that were
observed and tested regularly and
the parents/carers were
interviewed. A follow up study
was conducted when the
participants were 16-30.
- Results
- Severe social impairment takes different forms and
affects children with varying levels of intellectual
ability. The group was then subdivided on the basis
of intellectual ability.
- They found that children with higher intellectual
ability (mental age >20 months) who showed social
impairment also showed the two other key features
of autism.
- Sociable children in the higher ability group did not show the other two
features of autism (It is difficult to come to a definite conclusion for children
with an IQ of less than 20 months because they are not able to show some
of the behaviours e.g. strict adherence to routines)
- Conclusion
- The triad of impairments do not occur together
by chance but can be considered a syndrome
- Evaluation
- It was a longitudinal study carried out over 16 years so
there was 'participant drop out'. Therefore the sample of
socially impaired higher ability children was quite small.
- The sample was all taken from London,
therefore this makes the study culture bias and
makes generalisation unreliable.
- The triad of impairment does not tell us anything else about other recognised symptoms that autistic
individuals display e.g. islets of ability. It might be that some individuals who have the triad of impairments and
one or more of these other symptoms may eventually form new subgroups of autism.