A Study On The Theory And Executive Function Of Autistic Children In 8-16 Years Old

Autism was a kind of pervasive developmental disorders that came up at early childhood which has a neural basis. The symptoms of autism is in three aspects which is communication, interaction and interest. Its diagnosis is currently based on a critical triad of impairments in socialization, communication and imagination, with stereotyped repetitive interests. The theory-of-mind deficits can well placed to explain the social and communication impairments. On the other hand, executive dysfunction Appeared to account for the non-social impairments, namely the repeat stereotyped behavior patterns. Previous studies indicate that autism also have the theory-of-mind deficits and executive dysfunction, in addition, there is high correlation between the theory of mind and executive function. However, the nature of the relationship has not yet a unified conclusion. This study is based on previous studies measure theory of mind and executive function about autism children and then confirm the development of autistic children’s theory of mind and executive function, verify the validity of the evaluation way to theory of mind and determine the task of presenting and verbal ability influence the assessment of autistic children theory of mind, and thus have a thorough understanding of the relationship between executive function and autistic children theory of mind.This research choose16autism child aged8to16as subject.The first experiment assess theory of mind to autism child by psychological story task and standard false belief task which include unexpected location task, unexpected content task and appearance-reality distinction task. Also contrast their task achievement of psychological story task in three different modes of presentation that is speech, image, video. The result show:autism child have a low passing rate and gender differences in all theory of mind task. Standard false belief task and psychological story task show significant correlation. There have a significant difference on psychological story task in three different modes of presentation that is speech, image, video. The score under the video presentation is better than the image and speech presentation.On the second experiment, hand game task, self-ordered pointing and day-night stroop task were used to measure executive function of autism child, theory of mind task was same as the first research. By analyze their task achievement of executive function task and the relation of theory of mind and executive function, the result show:autism child have a low passing rate in executive function task; there have a significant correlation in executive function synthesis scores and standard theory of mind tasks composite score, appearance-real task, psychological story tasks in image and video presentation; self-ordered pointing with standard theory of mind tasks composite score, unexpected location task, psychological story tasks in speech and image presentation show a significant correlation; day-night stroop task have significant correlation with appearance-reality distinction task, psychological story tasks in image and video presentation; self-ordered pointing can forecast standard theory of mind tasks composite score, unexpected location task, psychological story tasks in speech presentation; executive function synthesis scores can forecast appearance-reality distinction task, psychological story tasks in image and video presentation.Through the above experiment, the following conclusions can be find:(1) Autism child show up and gender difference in different theory of mind task. This supports the theory of theory-of-mind deficits.(2) In some respect, psychological story task and standard false belief task measure the same capability of theory of mind.(3) Different ways of tasks present has influence for assessment to autistic children in theory of mind, in some extent that verbal ability affect the completion of tasks of autistic children theory of mind.(4) Children with autism obstacle executive function, this verify the executive dysfunction said to autistic children.(5) There have relation between theory of mind and executive function to autistic children. The relationship between different dimension of theory of mind and the different components of executive function are not the same.