Bacon A L, Fein D, Morris R, Waterhouse L, Allen D
University of Connecticut, Storrs 06268, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 1998 Apr;28(2):129-42. doi: 10.1023/a:1026040615628.
The behavior of preschool children from five groups (developmental language disordered, high-functioning autistic, low-functioning autistic, mentally retarded, and normally developing) were coded in three situations: presentation of a nonsocial orienting stimulus (an unfamiliar noise) and two social situations involving simulated distress on the part of an adult with whom they were playing. Cognitive level was correlated with level of responsiveness to stimuli only for the two retarded groups (mentally retarded and low-functioning autistic). Girls showed more prosocial behavior than boys in both social situations, independent of diagnosis. The language-disordered children showed only mild and subtle social deficits. The low-functioning autistic children showed pronounced deficits in responding in all situations. The mentally retarded and high-functioning autistic children showed good awareness of all situations, but were moderately impaired in their ability to respond prosocially; they rarely initiated prosocial behavior, but did respond to specific prompts. The behavioral feature that marked both autistic groups, in contrast to all other groups, was a lack of social referencing; they did not tend to look toward an adult in the presence of an ambiguous and unfamiliar stimulus. Results are discussed in terms of variability between and among high- and low-functioning autistic children, and implications for the core deficits in autism.
对五组学龄前儿童（发育性语言障碍、高功能自闭症、低功能自闭症、智力迟钝和正常发育）在三种情境下的行为进行了编码：呈现非社会性定向刺激（一种不熟悉的噪音）以及两种涉及与他们一起玩耍的成人模拟痛苦的社会情境。仅在两个智力迟钝组（智力迟钝和低功能自闭症）中，认知水平与对刺激的反应程度相关。在两种社会情境中，无论诊断如何，女孩都比男孩表现出更多的亲社会行为。语言障碍儿童仅表现出轻微和微妙的社会缺陷。低功能自闭症儿童在所有情境中的反应都存在明显缺陷。智力迟钝和高功能自闭症儿童对所有情境都有良好的认知，但他们的亲社会反应能力受到中度损害；他们很少主动发起亲社会行为，但确实会对特定提示做出反应。与所有其他组相比，两个自闭症组的行为特征是缺乏社会参照；在存在模糊和不熟悉的刺激时，他们往往不会看向成人。根据高功能和低功能自闭症儿童之间的变异性以及对自闭症核心缺陷的影响对结果进行了讨论。
