Psychology

Summary
The article being criticized for this paper is about social attention impairment in children with autism and how this can create a negative cycle of poor social and cognitive skills development that can reinforce autism. Social attention impairment refers to the inability of young children with autism to identify and respond to social stimuli. Because of this impairment, a vicious cycle can occur, wherein the lack of social input can impair social and brain development in young children, which are also signs of autism. Dawson et al. (2004) examined the social attention impairments in children with autism. They noted studies that indicate how social attention impairments, especially joint attention, contribute to the development of communication skills. They examined and compared social attention skills, specifically social orienting, joint attention, and attention to the distress of others, among three groups young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), mental-age-matched children with developmental delay (DD) and children experiencing typical development. The research goals are 1) to replicate the same study with younger children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which has been previously done for older children with the same disorder, 2) to determine which of these impairments can differentiate children with autism from children with DD and typical development, and 3) to study which and how these impairments affect concurrent verbal language ability.

This study is an experimental research design. Participants were recruited from local advocacy groups, and they consist of (a) 72 children with ASD that are made of 50 children with autistic disorder and 22 children with pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) (b) 34 children with DD without autism and (c) 39 children with typical development. Parents are in the room during the sessions and children were rewarded with snacks and praise for good behavior and as needed. Social orienting is examined through four social (i.e. humming a tone) and four non-social sounds (i.e. whistle blowing). If children responds through turning their heads or eyes to the stimulus, that is considered as a response. Joint attention ability is defined as triadic, wherein children, object, and adults interact. At this point, several tasks were conducted, such as taking turns in playing. There were also second measures to assess joint attention ability and social orienting ability through relevant test measures. Attention to distress was measured through several actions and childrens responses to distressful situations (i.e. the moderator appearing to be hurt).

Results were analyzed through analysis of variance (ANOVA) and they are also interpreted through comparisons among the three groups of children. Findings showed that children with ASD fared worse than children with DD and typical development in all social attention tasks. In terms of social orienting, children with autism were less likely to respond to social and non-social stimuli, but more so for social stimuli. Joint attention also proved to be the most sensitive differentiator of autism from DD or typical development. Using joint alone only, it is possible to differentiate 83 of children with ASD and 63 of children without ASD (280). When joint attention and social orienting abilities are considered, differentiating children with ASD and those without generated more significant results- 75.5 of the children with ASD and 81.5 of children without ASD were properly classified (280). Knowing childrens attention to distress did not develop classification in terms of either sensitivity or specificity. Social orienting can, thus, be more useful in identifying autism in infants and toddlers. Joint attention also proved to be the most effective predictor of concurrent verbal language ability.

The theoretical implications are that social problems during infancy and early childhood can lead to lower communication competence, which can make autism even worse. However, Dawson et al. (2004) suggested that it is possible to provide interventions, such as through introducing social stimulus more proactively and guiding children to these stimuli, so that they can improve attention and social skills. In addition, Dawson et al. (2004) recommended that since joint attention is the best predictor of simultaneous language ability, increasing childrens motivation to respond to social stimuli and triadic communicative exchanges can improve later development of communicative skills to more typical development patterns.

Critique
This article has sound methodology because it used already tested and validated measures, which are combined with valid experimental measures for social skills problems. Furthermore, the authors are able to explain the answers to their research questions. On the other hand, it will also be helpful to focus on one unanswered question that this article no longer covered What are the social orientation and joint attention measures that can greatly improve language and social abilities for children with autism and those who have no autism, but have DD Would these measures differ among children with autism and those who have no autism, but have DD

I chose this issue because I wanted to extend research on young children with autism and DD, so that it is possible to understand their development more and how this knowledge can improve social interventions and their effectiveness in enhancing social and language skills among children with these disabilities. It will be interesting to postulate possible measures and test their effectiveness in improving target competences among children with autism and those who have no autism, but have DD.

I suggest an experimental research design based on the results of this article. For instance, in order to improve social orientation, I will use different social and non-social stimuli and even combinations, so that I can determine which among them can be used and to how many frequencies, before improvements in social orientation can be evaluated. For joint attention, I will include measures of using different kinds of colors and patterns that can catch the attention of children with autism. I will identify which among these objects they can respond to the most and hypothesize why they respond to certain stimuli only, which can facilitate joint interaction. For attention to distress, I will use other materials that can show distress, such as animals or other things, so that it may be possible that distress can be formed first through these measures, before children with autism can identify with stress that people experience.

If this experiment does not work, I can work more on an observation style, wherein I will observe different environments for children with autism and those with DD only, so that I can look for signs of social and non-social interaction. The findings can be my material for future studies that will use the same observation-based materials, so that they can be tested for their impacts and generalizability for other children with these kinds of disabilities. My theory is that it is possible that the different cognitive and social skills of children with autism, or with DD only, will make them more sensitive to other social and non-social stimuli that are not typical with average children. These different stimuli, even the non-social ones, can be used to mediate reaction to more social conditions.

The implications of these issue are the continuous interplay between theories and practice, especially those practices that would provide parents and caregivers of infants with disabilities more chances of helping their children develop certain skills they lack, and that this will also lead to constant participant-observation positions for parents and caregivers, so that they can also test the measures that can improve social skills of social orienting, joint attention, and attention to the distress of others. Another implication is more theoretical, wherein from this research it can be possible to define abstract concepts (i.e. interest, environmental conditions and mood combined for social stimulation to take place) that can stimulate social and cognitive skills among children with autism, which, in turn, can help practitioners create a better environment that can imbibe these concepts into practices.