Self-Understanding, Understanding of Others, and Affective Understanding in Adolescents with Autism

Abstract

Research in the past decade has shown that individuals with autism have disabilities in their theory of mind, and also that they have difficulties in affective understanding and self-understanding. However, we could find no published research directed toward the investigation of the relation between the understanding that children with autism have of themselves and others, and affective understanding. In the present study, adolescents with autism (CA 14-18 years, average WISC-R IQ 57) and children with mental retardation who were not autistic (CA 16-17 years, average WISC-R IQ 65) were given 3 tests to assess their self-understanding, understanding of others, and affective understanding. The results showed that the children with autism performed significantly less well than the children with mental retardation on all 3 tests. The children with autism who performed better on the self-understanding test also performed significantly better on the test of understanding of others than did those with lower scores. These results confirm that adolescents with autism have difficulties in affective understanding and self-understanding. The results also suggest that there is a significant relation between these youth's understanding of self and of others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)