title: Learning, plasticity, and atypical generalization in children with autism.
abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show accelerated learning in some tasks, degraded learning in others, and distinct deficits when generalizing to novel situations. Recent simulations with connectionist models suggest that deficits in cortical plasticity mechanisms can account for atypical patterns of generalization shown by some children with ASD. We tested the surprising theoretical prediction, from past simulations, that the children with ASD who show atypical generalization in perceptual categorization tasks will benefit more from training with a single prototypical member of the category than from training with multiple examples, but children with ASD who generalize normally will be comparatively harmed. The experimental results confirmed this prediction, suggesting that plasticity deficits may well underlie the difficulties that some children with ASD have generalizing skills, and these deficits are not specific to the acquisition of social skills, but rather reflect a more general perceptual learning deficit that may impact many abilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Park Hall, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, 14260, USA. bchurch@buffalo.edu.
authors.forename: Barbara A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Church
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Park Hall, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Courtney L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Park Hall, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dovgopoly
authors.affiliation: Institute for Autism Research, Canisius College, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY, 14208, USA.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Lopata
authors.affiliation: Institute for Autism Research, Canisius College, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY, 14208, USA.
authors.forename: Marcus L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Thomeer
authors.affiliation: Department of Counseling, School and Educational Psychology, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Park Hall, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York, 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mercado
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Autism; Category learning; Neural network modeling; Perceptual learning