Rutherford M D, Rogers Sally J
Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2003 Jun;33(3):289-302. doi: 10.1023/a:1024406601334.
This article examines the cognitive underpinnings of spontaneous and prompted pretend play in 28 young children with autism, 24 children with other developmental disorders, and 26 typical children. The article compares theories that consider either theory of mind (ToM) or executive function (EF) to be causally important deficits in the development of pretend play in autism and important factors in pretend play. Each of these two theories posits a cognitive precursor to pretense, which would need to be present in typical development, and the absence of which could explain pretend play deficits in children with developmental disabilities such as autism. We tested which of these theories better predicts a child's production of pretend play. Children with autism were significantly delayed on pretend play scores. They also had significant deficits in our ToM measure, but not our EF measures. Regression analyses suggested a role for our measure of generativity, one of the EF measures.
本文研究了28名自闭症幼儿、24名患有其他发育障碍的儿童以及26名正常儿童自发和诱发假装游戏的认知基础。本文比较了两种理论,一种理论认为心理理论(ToM)是自闭症中假装游戏发展的因果重要缺陷以及假装游戏中的重要因素,另一种理论认为执行功能(EF)是自闭症中假装游戏发展的因果重要缺陷以及假装游戏中的重要因素。这两种理论都假定了假装的认知前提,在正常发育中这种前提需要存在,而其缺失可以解释自闭症等发育障碍儿童的假装游戏缺陷。我们测试了这两种理论中哪一种能更好地预测儿童的假装游戏表现。自闭症儿童在假装游戏得分上明显延迟。他们在我们的心理理论测量中也有显著缺陷,但在执行功能测量中没有。回归分析表明我们的生成性测量(执行功能测量之一)起到了一定作用。