Cognitive and Social Learning of Autism - Thesis Example

? Cognitive and Social Learning of Autism al affiliation Cognitive and Social Learning of Autism Theory of mind It describes the ability of children to understand the thoughts and feelings of other people. This theory is part of the brain architecture of a human being. Impairment in its development has drastic effects on social learning seen in autistic disorders (leslie, 2004). Previous research has shown that reasoning about beliefs and desires begins as early as infancy and preschool. A child requires mind development that enables him or her to infer to all mental states that cause action. These states include beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, etc. Developing this theory enables a person to reflect on the contents of one’s own mind and that of other people (Simon, 2001). By approximately four years of age, children having normal development can reason fluently about perceptions, desires, and goals of others. ToM has several origins in developing human bodies. One of them is imitation. Infants are able to imitate lip and tongue movements and other facial gestures. This shows that they are able to connect the acts of others with the acts of their own. As early as two weeks of age, they can imitate mouth opening, tongue protrusion, and eye movements. Infants try to map the acts of others to their goals by making self-produced movements that match the visual targets. They move their lips and face in comparison to the activities seen from others. This imitation can be extended to perception. If infants are given certain shape to feel with their mouths, and then withdrawn, they will concentrate more on the shapes are shown to them. This confirms that the visual attention was driven by what they felt. When infants are shown an unsuccessful act like aiming at a target, they can read the intentions of the shooter. They are able to understand persons by involving their goals and intentions. This understanding is necessary for developing communication. The memory of an infant forms lasting representations of perceived events. These memories are then used to generate motor reactions long after the event has passed. If an infant is subjected to some sound accompanied by a visual image of a vowel pronunciation, the infant will make similar lip movement when the sound is replayed. This implies that the infant is able to associate the sound with the lip movement of the image. Infants use imitation and event perceptions as part of their social development. They can match the behavior they detect and their own behavioral productions. Doherty (2009) explains that children can predict behavior by knowing the desires of an individual. Mind blindness is the failure or inability to attribute mental states (desires and beliefs) to self and others. This condition exists in children with autism, and impairs social interaction and communication. The ability to read, understand and predict the behavior of others in relation to their intentions lacks or is poorly developed in people with autism (Frith, 2001). For example, John has a box and Sam has a bucket. John puts a tennis ball in the box and leaves. Sam picks up the ball and hides it in the bucket. When children are asked where John will look for the ball, normal children will guess that he will look for it in the box. This looks obvious, but for children with autism they fail to guess the correct answer. They say that he will look for the ball in Sam’s bucket. These children are unable to understand deception and the belief that John will look for the ball where he left it. Another example is where a teacher mentions a new word while showing a certain image. Children with autism are unable to map the word and the image when it is moved. The child fails to create a memory that relates the image to the sound. Mind blindness makes such children less responsive to emotions displayed by other people. TOM deals with relating to emotions, beliefs, and communication with others. The social environment acts as a triggering agent for the development of TOM. Emotions are caused by physical events. For example, receiving a present makes someone happy, injuries make people cry etc. Normal children are able to link these emotions with the physical causes. They tend to restrain from hurting others so that they cannot cry. When a person is sad they might consider giving them presents to make them happy. Happiness can also be brought about by getting what a person wants or expecting something they want. Developing children are able to understand these emotional causes. However, children with autism have difficulties with associating these emotions with their causes. Infants are able to relate actions to the intentions of the actor. This relation is important for social development. They are able to understand figurative speech such as metaphors, sarcasm, and irony. This understanding requires the child to understand the speaker’s intentions. Children are able to relate a long fixed gaze to intense thinking. In school, children develop play skills which facilitate social co-operation. This involves participating in group games where each child has a different role. For example in police and robber game, the children will act according to their roles in the game and what they know about police officers and robbers. Children with autism are reluctant to play or have poor coordination between different parts of play (Hughes and Leekam, 2004). Many scholars have criticized TOM. Hacking views language and interaction as a practice based on norms. He argues that practices such as roller skating cannot be developed by reading books. ToM suggests that we can infer intensions from observing behavior. According to Hacking, intentions are seen directly. McGeer argues that ToM cannot account for the symmetry experienced between two people who fail to understand each other (Hackings, 2009). People with autism might pass ToM tasks but perform poorly in tasks that deal with these core aspects of social information. Children with autism have several impairments in social and communication skills, which are not covered exhaustively by ToM. This theory considers age, IQ, and language which are not exhaustive. Achieving full language development requires practice and not just observation of lip movements. If a man is locked in a room, without external communication, and given books and questions to answer he can do it without understanding. The man is told where to look for the answers, and does so without understanding the concept. The program requires active involvement of children with autism. These kids require a long exposure to develop association between objects and events. Children with autism require a lot of involvement and patience before they can learn how to relate certain emotions with their causal physical events. As indicated in mind blindness theory, these children take long to develop TOM, which is a characteristic impairment. The intervention program can use activities that will enhance these children develop language such as story telling sessions. Games that require group participation where each player has a different role can also be used. Central Coherence Theory Individuals with autism have mental representations rather than verbal ones. In central coherence theory, individuals with autism are biased towards local processing rather than global processing. Most of such individuals have poor processing in tasks requiring global processing and perform better in tasks requiring local processing. However, some of the activities requiring local processing are verbal. These tasks include homograph pronunciation, or embedded figures. They are able to process information in these scenarios contradicting the notion that individuals with autism perform poorer in verbal tasks. These individuals also perform well in non-visual local tasks such as pitch and melody perception. This is caused by failure of the central nervous system to integrate sources of information meaningfully. The individuals are unable to integrate all pieces within the framework to the short-term memory. For example, they are able to match shades of the same color in a picture with several colors. However, they might be unable to find rhyming words in a paragraph containing several words (Happe, and Frith, 2006). In recent research, the lack of central processing is attributed to superiority in local processing or a more detail-focused processing. These individuals lack generalization required for global processing and pay more attentions to small details. In music, they pay more attention to the pitch of the sound other than the melody of the song. Pitch is a local process while melody requires combining the pitch and timing effects of the song. They have high thresholds for coherent motion perception and reduced susceptibility to visually induced motion. In the embedded figure task, the children are shown an image, which is then embedded onto a larger image. The task requires retrieving information from the memory regarding the first image to be able to identify it from the bigger image. The thinking process takes long, and the individual might be unable make the right choice (Happe, and Frith, 2006). These individuals connect information such as daily routines and calendar calculation. They are able to relate simple visual elements coherently when drawing. Activities such as chaining pictures to form a coherent story require global processing of figures. They have to take into account the adjacent pictures for the story to flow. However, this task can be completed without linking the pictures together. The individual can write a story describing a certain picture or pictures without chaining the events. They are able to develop schemas of the events in the pictures to produce a meaningful story. This requires local processing of the events. This implies that they are able to link information within a local domain to develop coherent representations. Interpreting daily routine requires local processing. The individuals can link together activities in the school schedule but fail to match together sentences in a grammar test. This theory successfully explains the prevalence experienced in these individuals in activities where attention to detail is required. Such individuals perform better in professions such as engineering, which require observing and understanding specific details. Most of the activities in such profession are visual, and language use minimum. Therefore, the bias exhibited by autistic individuals explains their inability to process large and varying pieces of information. These individuals lack universality but are more specific. Poor language development exhibited by such children can be exhaustively explained using this theory. It provides the framework to test the differences in language coherence. These individuals lack the ability to understand phrases and passages but can understand simple words. Several conflicting results have emerged from studies to test this theory. Children with autism can link together visual illusions using paper and pencil tasks instead of three dimensional embedded images. These individuals pay more attention to particular details rather than the whole picture or musical melody. This means that they have central coherence only that it is narrowed down to certain details. Their core thinking capability is existent, but it is biased towards local processing of information. Individuals with autism integrate properties of single objects such as color and texture, and process meaning of simple words. Weakness is only experienced in connecting word and different words. In some cases, weak coherence is experienced in certain groups of autistic individuals meaning that it is not a universal trait. Some individuals can integrate information well. The tests used to test coherence probe certain cognitive functions of interest. They test image integration, homophones etc, which are not exhaustive. Scholars such as Hoy, Hatton and Hare (2004) have criticized this theory in that homographs are not conclusive. There are different ways of passing or failing a test depending on the test at hand. Individuals may fail to understand homographs and the failure to derive meaning from them does not imply lack of core coherence. Such individuals pay more attention to certain details and leave out irrelevant information. According to Terra (2009), an autistic person was able to describe the major details of a fashion show. The individual was able to link together the events in the show and store them in the memory. Her decision to leave out irrelevant information describes bias towards details. According to Natasja (2003), individuals with autism can perceive blocks of an intact image faster than individuals. Their minds are able to process information regarding the blocks, but they may fail to write a cognitive story from a series of linked images. This indicates that their coherence is existent but biased. The teaching program can include activities that are not chained together. The children are required to develop meaning from simple activities rather than complex ones. In pronunciation activities, use of simple word and phrases can help them learn and understand language. Involvement in simple games that have disengaged activities can enhance their social participation. Simple models used by the teacher can help them develop the ability of relating different fragments of information in their environment. Involving activities that require paying attention to details can help them nurture this ability and increase their psrticipation. These children have the ability to observe important details instead of the whole range of available information. Executive Function theory Development of executive function (EF) flows out of social interaction. Language is the most prominent tool and as these tools become more sophisticated, the minds become less reliant on the stimuli that cause thinking about them. Social interaction transmits cultural tools of language and related symbols that are engaged in the service of executive control. Self-control is believed to emerge from reflection and deliberation of several responses. Children can be told to point to the box with few candies to receive more. The box candies can be substituted by an elephant to symbolize more and a mouse to symbolize less. The children can be asked to point to the ones they want. This performance is sustained even when real candies are introduced. This indicates that symbols are a powerful tool for controlling the mind. When a child acts on an impulse, the caregiver reacts in a certain way. This reaction is internalized and the child assumes roles that are self-regulating. This self-regulating is important in maintaining a certain relationship with the caregiver. Teaching is an activity associated with social understanding and EF (Carlson, 2009). An individual should have the ability to develop certain goals, plan actions, and carry out the plans effectively. Neuropsychology has a molecular view of EF. EF encompasses actions of planning, sequencing actions, maintaining certain behavior sets, and resisting interference. Some people argue that the frontal lobes of the brain control EF. The mind controls verbal interaction, planning, and mental attention. Neuropsychology treats impulsiveness as a problem, but the nervous system has reinforcement for impulsiveness. An executive act is any act towards ones behavior aimed at modifying future outcomes for that individual (Meltzer, 2007). EFs and self-regulation maximize social consequences related to certain behavior. The individual requires means to perceive and evaluate the future over immediate outcomes. Nonverbal working memory originates from the privatization of the sensory motor. The individual visualizes him/herself and hears him/herself. The mind is able to sense a hypothetical future from the experiences of the past. This creates mental representations of the viewed elements that serve as sources of self-control in the future. A person can also internalize self-speech. This allows for self-description and reflection as well as invention of rules that govern someone (Barkley, 2001). This theory has also received criticism from several scholars. Evolution and the environment have adverse effects on the individual. There is a huge difference between the brains of the primates and human beings due to evolution. In autism, executive impairments experienced also occur in other development disorders. This theory is non discriminative. It is hard to establish whether these impairments cause disorder or appear later in the development process. The functions of the whole nervous system are mapped into a single anatomical location of the brain. This assumes that the coherent functions must have a unitary anatomical location. The central system is considered as a unitary system, but it contains sub systems that must be considered. The frontal lobes represent a large area of the brain and might not function in unison. Executive processes involve links between different parts of the brain; therefore they are not exclusively associated with the frontal lobes (Meltzer, 2010). Patients can have deficits of EFs without any damage to the frontal lobes. In some cases, patients with frontal lesions do not show loss of executive functions. Children with autism have difficulties in developing goals, making flexible changes in their plans, evaluating the outcome of previous plans etc. This is referred to as Executive Dysfunction. The children are not able to relate the outcomes of the past events with future events. Keeping a plan in the working memory becomes difficult. The children require to have the feeling they can perform certain tasks. This is developed through active participation and encouragement from the teacher. The children will require all the tools needed for working towards retention of activities and self evaluation. In games and other activities, the children require a lot of praises for the outcomes even the results are not optimal. They will learn how control the sources of their shortcomings. Active involvement enables them to form a sequence of small steps that will help them formulate goals in their life. The teacher can also involve them in making plans for the next games or activities. This helps the children develop the skill of goal setting and the importance of having goals in life. These strategies can be used throughout their lives and are applicable in problem solving. Social Learning Theory Human behavior is influenced by the environment, personal factors, and behavior attributes of an individual. These factors form the social learning theory (Bandura, 1999). According to Bandura, change of human behavior happens due to the belief that aperson is capable of performing a new action. The individual must have the incentive to do so (Bandura, 1999). Individual behavior can best be understood through learning social cues, cognitions, and consequences. Assumptions also constitute the learning process and are significant for constructing reality. Self and personality are repertoires of complex behavior patterns. The self is developed by relating with the environment. New behavior is developed by observing models. For learning to take place, the individual must expect the positive consequences to outweigh the negative ones. Bandura was the major motivator of the social learning theory. He believed that cognitive development cannot account for all behavioral changes. However, he believed cognitive abilities of a child affect their learning process. The problem with classical and operant conditioning is that it does not explain how children acquire behavior by watching others. The child can acquire certain behavior by watching someone else and copying them. However, the child does not require reinforcing to learn the behavior. According to observational learning, the child learns behavior through observation. According to Bandura, children observe parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and other characters they encounter in their growth period. When a child sees the parents caring for others, environment, contributing to charity etc, they will tend to be the same. A child who experiences violence will be more aggressive. Telling children to be generous or have certain qualities does not help, showing generosity or showing those qualities will have effects on them. This is because they will copy the generous acts, which will influence their behavior. Children with autism exhibit impaired imitation. They have difficulties imitating certain behaviors from their parents or teachers. Imitation is seen as the first instance by an infant to make a connection between the world of others and that of their own. A problem in recognizing and matching their movement to that of others results to impaired social development. As explained by Bandura, children observe the behaviors of others and start developing similar behaviors as part of their learning process. This imitation can be blind or proper. For example, very young children can imitate lighting a bulb with their heads. However, they are not concerned with whether the bulb lights or not. This is called blind imitation. Older children can imitate the same action but they will check to see if the bulb lights. This is called proper imitation. Children with autism can succeed in such imitation. However, in gestural imitation, they totally fail. Activities such as tongue protrusion or wiggling ears with both hands are impossible to imitate for autistic children as discussed by Griffin (2002). This theory explains the reason for blind imitation in children with autism. These children exhibit behavioral deficits or pick up behavior that cannot be accounted for. They fail to interact with other individuals in the society or participate in social activities. Goal emulation involves associating certain behavior with the outcome. For example when an individual does something and is awarded, children associate that behavior with the award given. They tend to imitate such behavior hoping to receive a similar award. However, children with autism fail to develop goal emulated behaviors. They fail to link the behavior to the award and might not develop that behavior. Certain behaviors developed by children cannot be accounted for. According to this theory, the child imitates the parents, teachers, or peers. However, in certain cases the child exhibits behavior that does not match that of their parents or teachers. The children also fail to acquire behavior practiced by their parents or teachers. Children may become violent even when their parents are gentle. Violent parents may also have gentle children. These differences in behavior are not catered for by the social learning theory. Children with HFA develop or lack certain behavior that is present in the society even though they have little interest for social interaction. They engage more with objects but develop certain behaviors, which cannot be attributed to social learning. The instructors can utilize applied behavior analysis to increase, reduce a behavior or develop new behavior. Reinforcement is used to encourage a certain behavior, and encourage its repetition. On the other hand, punishment can be used to discourage a certain behavior. Repeated pairing of stimulus-response activities and manipulation of positive or negative consequences helps direct behavior to desired directions. Physical trials may also be repeated several times in a day or over several days until a certain skill is mastered. The teacher can manipulate the environment to match the skill the child is required to master. This may include eliminating certain elements from the environment that act as distraction. Modeling According to Martin and Pear (2002), modeling refers to presenting an individual with a certain behavior and assessing him or her to determine whether the behavior has been picked up. A model demonstrates the required behavior so that the observer can imitate. The child spends more time with objects rather than people. Therefore, the model is required to devise ways that can shift the attention of the children from objects to people. Interaction in play activities with a model can improve the child’s ability to interact with peers during play activities. In one model study, computer presented stories and video models were used to develop communication skills in children with high-functioning autism. The children were required to watch videos, and their behavior was assessed twice weekly. The results obtainshowed that the model was effective in improving the social communication of the children. They were able to imitate the models in the videos to develop their own skills. Interventions presented via the computer are efficient modeling objects due to lack of interest for human activities by children with HFA. The children watched video tapes of models engaging in target behavior to be imitated. The child learns to imitate and memorize these behaviors discretely. This modeling technique can be used to modify, change, or shape certain behaviors in children with HFA. These children have strong visual learning strengths, and they have the ability to imitate such behaviors quickly than normal children (Frank and Kelly, 2008). Social stories help these children develop skills such as greeting people appropriately, sharing things with others, increasing play activities, and increasing social communication. These children learn how to interact with others and develop interest for social groups. However, these children face several challenges during modeling. They have little interest for activities involving social groups. They lack the platform to exercise these behaviors and the channels for learning these behaviors are limited. The models require having characteristics that fall within the capability range of the children. Their ability to imitate the models depends on how well they relate the behavior to the objects they are used to. These children have social disinterest and they may refrain from copying these social behaviors and lack the platform to practice them (Frank and Kelly,2008). References Andrew, M. (1999).Origins of theory of mind, cognition and communication. Elsevier. 251-263. Barkley, R. (2001). The executive functions and self regulation: an evolutionary neuralpsychological perspective. Neuropsychology review, 11, 1-29 Bandura A. (1999). 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