Interest towards human, animal and object in children with autism spectrum disorders: an ethological approach at home.

Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterised by attention deficits in communication and social interactions and a lack of interest in people. Data are mostly based on clinical situations. However, recent studies have shown a more mixed situation where children with ASD (ASD children) displayed interest towards humans, in both experimental and natural settings.

Does pet arrival trigger prosocial behaviors in individuals with autism?

Alteration of social interactions especially prosocial behaviors--an important aspect of development--is one of the characteristics of autistic disorders. Numerous strategies or therapies are used to improve communication skills or at least to reduce social impairments. Animal-assisted therapies are used widely but their relevant benefits have never been scientifically evaluated.

Children's understanding of ambiguous idioms and conversational perspective-taking.

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that conversational perspective-taking is a determinant of unfamiliar ambiguous idiom comprehension. We investigated two types of ambiguous idiom, decomposable and nondecomposable expressions, which differ in the degree to which the literal meanings of the individual words contribute to the overall idiomatic meaning. We designed an experiment to assess the relationship between the acquisition of figurative comprehension and conversational perspective-taking.

Environmental factors influence language development in children with autism spectrum disorders.

Background: While it is clearly admitted that normal behavioural development is determined by the interplay of genetic and environmental influences, this is much less the case for psychiatric disorders for which more emphasis has been given in the past decades on biological determinism. Thus, previous studies have shown that Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) were not affected by parental style. However, animal research suggests that different behavioural traits can be differentially affected by genetic/environmental factors.

[Emotions and situations of communication in children and adolescents with frontal cerebral lesions].

Objective: Following cerebral lesions, especially right and frontal cerebral lesions, patients often have difficulties in social cognition. Emotional skills are often impaired. Adults with cerebral lesions have difficulty identifying facial emotional expressions and attributing emotions in situations of communication.