Generalized Event Representation in Pre-School Children with Mild- to High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Children with Cognitive and Linguistic Delays (CLD)

GENERALIZED EVENT REPRESENTATION IN PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN WITH MILDTO HIGH-FUNCTIONING AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER (ASD) AND CHILDREN WITH COGNITIVE AND LINGUISTIC DELAYS (CLD) by Tashana S. Samuel Advisor: Dr. Laraine McDonough Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently establish rigid routines and have difficulties flexibly applying what they have learned. Three experiments were conducted to examine generalized event representation in 34 pre-school children. In Experiment 1, children diagnosed with varying kinds of cognitive and language delays (CLD: n = 14) were tested with the generalized imitation paradigm, a reliable measure of representational capacity. Two sets of perceptually dissimilar objects with similar functions were used to perform the same task: one set consisted of modeling props and the other set was the generalization props. At the generalization assessment, children observed actions modeled by the experimenter, after which they were given different sets of objects (varying in size, shape, color and texture, but have the same function as the modeled props) that they could use to generalize the events. At the imitation assessment, children again observed actions modeled by the experimenter, but were given the same set of objects that the experimenter had used. The order in which the individual actions were modeled was causal (the actions must be produced in a particular order to achieve a goal), arbitrary (the actions can be produced in any order with the same resulting outcome), or conventional (e.g.,