Sara Peretti

The Role of Theory of Mind on Social Information Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Mediation Analysis

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show significant impairments in social skills and theory of mind (ToM). The aim of this study was to evaluate ToM and social information processing abilities in 52 children with ASD compared to 55 typically developing (TD) children. A mediation analysis evaluated whether social information processing abilities can be mediated by ToM competences. In our results, children with autism showed a deficit in social skills and ToM components. The innovative results of our study applying mediation analysis demonstrate that ToM plays a key role in the development of social abilities, and the lack of ToM competences in children with autism impairs their competent social behavior.

Understanding criminal behavior: Empathic impairment in criminal offenders

ABSTRACT Criminal offenders (CO) are characterized by antisocial and impulsive lifestyles and reduced empathy competence. According to Zaki and Ochsner, empathy is a process that can be divided into three components: mentalizing, emotional sharing and prosocial concern. The aim of our study was to evaluate these competences in 74 criminal subjects compared to 65 controls. The CO group demonstrated a lower ability in measures of mentalizing and sharing, especially in recognizing the mental and emotional states of other people by observing their eyes and sharing other people’s emotions. Conversely, CO subjects showed better abilities in prosocial concern measures, such as judging and predicting the emotions and behavior of other people, but they were not able to evaluate the gravity of violations of social rules as well as the control group. In addition, logistic regression results show that the higher the deficits in the mentalizing component are, the higher the probability of committing a crime against another person. Taken together, our results suggest that criminal subjects are able to judge and recognize other people’s behavior as right or wrong in a social context, but they are not able to recognize and share the suffering of other people.

Simple Mindreading Abilities Predict Complex Theory of Mind: Developmental Delay in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Theory of mind (ToM) is impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The aims of this study were to: (i) examine the developmental trajectories of ToM abilities in two different mentalizing tasks in children with ASD compared to TD children; and (ii) to assess if a ToM simple test known as eyes-test could predict performance on the more advanced ToM task, i.e. comic strip test. Based on a sample of 37 children with ASD and 55 TD children, our results revealed slower development at varying rates in all ToM measures in children with ASD, with delayed onset compared to TD children. These results could stimulate new treatments for social abilities, which would lessen the social deficit in ASD.

Formal Psychological Assessment for Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis: A New Methodology to Build An Adaptive Testing System

RESEARCH ARTICLE Formal Psychological Assessment for Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis: A New Methodology to Build An Adaptive Testing System Maria Chiara Pino, Andrea Spoto, Melania Mariano, Umberto Granziol, Sara Peretti, Francesco Masedu, Marco Valenti, Monica Mazza and Giulio Vidotto Department of Applied Clinical Sciences and Biotechnology, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, L’Aquila, Italy Reference Regional Centre for Autism, Abruzzo Region Health System, L’Aquila, Italy

Designing a Personalizable ASD-Oriented AAC Tool: An Action Research Experience

ICT tools are considered very promising in the treatment of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who experience - among others - severe difficulties in communication and interaction. A number of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools have been proposed to compensate for severe speech-language impairments in the expression or comprehension of spoken/written language for people with a variety of conditions that hamper their communication ability. In the case of ASD people, domain experts underline the necessity of high personalization of assistive tools, given the extreme individuality of the condition. In this paper we report on an on-going design process of an ASD-oriented AAC tool able to support operators in personalization tasks. The design is being carried out as an action research experience aimed at developing a prototype and at defining an underlying AAC model.

The role of sleep in aesthetic perception and empathy: A mediation analysis

The ability to experience aesthetics plays a fundamental role in human social interactions, as well as the capacity to feel empathy. Some studies have shown that beauty perception shares part of the neural network underlying emotional and empathic abilities, which are also known to affect sleep quality and duration. In this study, we evaluated for the first time the effects of sleep on the relation between aesthetic perception and empathic abilities in healthy subjects using a mediation analysis approach. One‐hundred and twenty‐six subjects participated in this study. One‐hundred and one subjects slept at home (Sleep Group). The remaining 25 subjects were tested as controls after 1 night of sleep deprivation to assess the effects of lack of sleep on aesthetic perception and empathy (Sleep‐Deprived Group). All participants underwent one testing session in which they performed a battery of empathy tests and an aesthetic perception task (Golden Beauty). The results showed that sleep duration mediates the relationship between empathy and aesthetic perception in the sleep group. The mediation effect of sleep was more evident on the emotional empathy measures. Conversely, in the sleep deprivation group the lack of correlations among empathy, aesthetic perception and sleep variables did not allow to perform the mediation analysis. These results suggest that adequate sleep duration may play a significant role in improving cognitive and emotional empathic abilities as well as the capability to give accurate aesthetic judgements.

When do children with autism develop adequate social behaviour? Cross-sectional analysis of developmental trajectories

ABSTRACT The ability to process social information is part of the social cognition construct and it includes the ability to select the appropriate social responses. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show difficulties in these competences that could compromise the development of adequate social behaviour. The aim of the study was to examine the development of the ability to process social cues across the Social Information Processing Interview (SIP-I) conducted with 38 children with ASD compared with 39 children with typical development using cross-sectional developmental trajectory analysis. Children with ASD showed slower development of complex abilities according to the SIP-I measures, particularly for the response construction component. This component evaluates the capacity of a child to put himself/herself in the shoes of other people and try to explain how he/she would act in the same situation. Slower development of this competence could explain the difficulty encountered by children with ASD in interacting with their peers and making an adequate behavioural response.