Self-recognition deficits in autism: syndrome-specific or general developmental delay?
Many reports can be found in the theoretical literature that refer to a lack of self-awareness or a failure to distinguish self from nonself as a characteristic of autistic children. The empirical literature also contains reports of behaviors in autistic children that have often been taken as reflective of a failure to differentiate self, i.e., pronominal reversal, gaze aversion. The present study investigated the development of self-recognition in 15 autistic children in an effort to determine whether failures of self-recognition were of possible diagnostic significance for the syndrome or rather were reducible to general indices of developmental function, i.e., mental age. Fifty-three percent of the sample showed clear self-recognition. On the basis of a developmental assessment and data from a teacher questionnaire, these children were found to be functioning at mental ages akin to developmental norms for self-recognition. Those who failed to show self-recognition had mental ages below the developmental level at which many children recognize themselves and significantly lower than those autistic children who showed self-recognition. The results suggest that even when autistic children fail to recognize their self-images, this failure can be taken not as evidence for a syndrome-specific deficit but as a reflection of a general developmental delay.
D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D012917:Social Adjustment; D013239:Stereotyped Behavior