ERIC Number: EJ983194
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Nov
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0162-3257
EISSN: N/A
Brief Report: Assessment of the Social-Emotional Profile in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Using a Novel Comic Strip Task
Sivaratnam, Carmel S.; Cornish, Kim; Gray, Kylie M.; Howlin, Patricia; Rinehart, Nicole J.
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, v42 n11 p2505-2512 Nov 2012
This study investigated whether the novel Comic Strip Task (CST) could be used to detect Theory-of-Mind impairments (ToM) in 4- to 8-year-old children with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Twelve children with either high-functioning autism or Asperger's Disorder and 12 typically-developing children completed the 21-item measure. The overall CST demonstrated moderate internal consistency but the Belief-understanding subscale was excluded from the test due to poor reliability. As predicted, the ASD group performed significantly more poorly than controls on the overall 2-subscale CST and on the intention-understanding subscale. No group differences were found in emotion-understanding subscale performance. Controlling for age, verbal ability was positively correlated with overall CST performance across groups. CST performance in the ASD group positively correlated with parent-reports of communication difficulties. Despite some limitations with the belief-understanding subscale, the CST has promising psychometric features warranting further development of this measure. (Contains 4 tables and 2 figures.)
Descriptors: Verbal Ability, Autism, Theory of Mind, Psychometrics, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Social Development, Emotional Development, Children, Cartoons, Asperger Syndrome, Comparative Analysis, Intention, Age Differences
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A