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Infants with autism: an investigation of empathy, pretend play, joint attention, and imitation
Abstract
Systematic studies of infants with autism have not been previously carried out. Taking advantage of a new prospective screening instrument for autism in infancy (S. Baron-Cohen et al., 1996), the present study found that, compared with developmentally delayed and normally developing children, 20-month-old children with autism were specifically impaired on some aspects of empathy, joint attention, and imitation. Infants with autism failed to use social gaze in the empathy and joint attention tasks. Both the infants with autism and the infants with developmental delay demonstrated functional play, but very few participants in either group produced spontaneous pretend play. In the developmental delay group, but not the autism group, pretend play was shown following prompting. The implications of these findings for developmental accounts of autism and for the early diagnosis of the disorder are discussed.
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“it's abnormalities has been linked to problems with empathy (Charman et al., 1997) and autism (Senju and Johnson, 2009).”
From Connecting minds and sharing emotions through mimicry: A neurocognitive model of emotional contagion (2017) · cites this paper as Charman et al., 1997
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Metadata
- Authors
- Charman, T., Swettenham, J., Baron-Cohen, S., Cox, A., Baird, G., & Drew, A.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Venue
- Developmental Psychology
- Published
- 1997
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 781-789
- ISSN
- 0012-1649 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-0599
- OpenAlex
- W4253581535
- Cited by
- 813
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 62 · 2019: 43 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 38 · 2016: 30 · 2015: 44 · 2014: 49 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 58
- FWCI
- 3.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Developmental Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, infants, empathy, pretend play, joint attention, imitation, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Attention, Autistic Disorder, Developmental Disabilities, Empathy, Female, Humans, Imagination, Imitative Behavior, Infant, Male, Play and Playthings, Prospective Studies, Social Facilitation, Chi-Square Distribution, Case-Control Studies, Single-Blind Method, Infant Behavior, Observation
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