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A Comparative Study of the Use and Understanding of Self-Presentational Display Rules in Children with High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Disorder

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Abstract

The use and understanding of self-presentational display rules (SPDRs) was investigated in 21 children with high-functioning autism (HFA), 18 children with Asperger’s disorder (AspD) and 20 typically developing (TD) children (all male, aged 4- to 11-years, matched on mental age). Their behaviour was coded during a deception scenario to assess use of SPDRs; understanding of SPDRs was assessed via three real/apparent emotion-understanding vignettes. The children with HFA and AspD used less effective SPDRs than the TD children, but there were no group differences in understanding SPDRs. The children with HFA and AspD did not differ on their use or understanding of SPDRs, and the results are discussed in relation to the similarities and differences between these diagnostic conditions.

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Notes

  1. Young children tend to put their hands over their mouths when lying, and the deception the children were using in this context is a form of lying as they are not telling the Experimenter (2) about the deception.

  2. There were no instances of negative affect, thus this behaviour was not considered.

  3. Interestingly, the expected effects were apparent when VMA was not partialled out of the analysis, where the three groups’ responses on questions A and B were different, in accordance with the hypothesis [i.e. HFA < (TD = AspD)].

  4. However, it is worth noting that chronological age was not correlated with this variable, and thus did not impact on the outcome.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported in this paper formed part of the first author’s honours thesis, which was conducted under the supervision of the second author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3086, Australia

    Josephine Barbaro & Cheryl Dissanayake

Authors
  1. Josephine Barbaro
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  2. Cheryl Dissanayake
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cheryl Dissanayake.

Appendices

Appendix A

Description of Global Scale

Appendix B

 

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Barbaro, J., Dissanayake, C. A Comparative Study of the Use and Understanding of Self-Presentational Display Rules in Children with High Functioning Autism and Asperger’s Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 37, 1235–1246 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0267-y

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