Theme of the lab

As early as infancy, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are less inclined to orient to social cues such as their parent’s eye gaze or the sound of their name than their typical and developmentally delayed peers. These “lapses of attention” may be creating a disadvantage in the social experiences of children with ASD over time. For example, many children may be missing out on important social information and learning opportunities that promote the development of social competence . The research at ADDL is designed to explore the ways that processes of attention may interfere or facilitate an individual’s ability to engage in a variety of social experiences ranging from detecting information from eyes and faces to interpreting subtle cues from complex social interactions involving several participants.

Here are a few examples of the kinds of questions that we ask in our research

Attention

Are children with ASD good visual searchers and how is this related to their visual search for social information?

Figure 1. The visual search paradigm.  Left: example of a search display in which the participant has to search for the presence of a red O.  Right: prototypical search function, with response time to detect or reject the presence of a target plotted as a function of the number of distractors in the display (e.g., red N's and green O's). Search times tend to increase with as more distracters are added to the display.  Previous research indicates that individuals with autism are superior to typically developing individuals at searching for targets (O'Riordan et al., 2004; Autism, 8(3), 229-248).

Social attention

Do children with ASD orient their attention automatically to others’ eye gaze direction in object-rich visual scenes? Is this related to how they understand eye gaze information? Do individuals with ASD have an attentional bias away from the eyes, and what is the best way to measure this?

Figure 2.  Stimuli used to examine social attention.  Left: a schematic face looking at the location of a to-be-detected target.  People are usually faster to detect a target when it appears at the location gazed at by the face. Research from our lab suggests that 'gaze cuing' is less reflexive in individuals with autism (Ristic et al., 2005, Cognitive Brain Research, 24, 715–718; Rombough & Iarocci, in revision).  Right: a real world scene depicting shared attention. Previous research suggest that there are subtle difference in how individuals with autism visuall explore scenes to collect information about where people in the picture are directing their attention (e.g., Birmingham, Cef & Adolphs, in press).

Social Perception

We construct our identities through our social interactions with others but for someone with social difficulties how would self-identity develop? How do people with ASD make sense of others’ emotions from looking at their faces?

Figure 3.  Four prototypical expressions used in our research. From left to right: angry, happy, fearful, disgusted. Taken from the NimStim set of facial expressions (Tottenham et al., 2009).  Past research suggests that individuals with ASD have difficulties with identifying facial expressions of emotion (see Harms et al., 2010, Neuropsychology Review 20, 290–322 for a review). Our lab is testing whether the attentional strategies used to process emotional faces is different in individuals with autism.
 

Issues in Adolescents and Adults with ASD

As individuals enter adolescence and adulthood, often questions like “Who am I?” and “What do I want to do with my life?” become important. We are interested in understanding how individuals with ASD approach these important questions about their lives. Especially, in youth with ASD these questions may also be influenced by experiences of standing out as different. So far most research on autism has focused on childhood, which is important for finding early treatments. However, ASD is a lifelong condition that can also greatly affect adolescents and adults. We are committed to learning more about individuals with ASD across the life-span.

 
At present, we are conducting a research project that is directly aiming at understanding more about how teens and young adults view themselves and their future. If you would like to learn more about this project please go to: http://autismlab.psyc.sfu.ca/studies or contact Theo at idstudy@sfu.ca.
 

Social competence

What types of social problems do persons within the Autism spectrum have? How are they different from those of persons with other types developmental disabilities?