MANAGEMENT IMPAIRMENT OF OTHER'S KNOWLEDGE: AUTISM and ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

I have posted this recent article given its deep connection with my thesis project. As people with Alzheimer's Disease, Children with Autism are not able to manage knowledge about their interlocutors. The current article deals with how those with autism have not the ability to gauge other's emotions and that meddle in communicative interaction.

A team from the University of Durham studied 13 adults with autism and found the patients had difficulty identifying emotions such as anger or happiness when shown short animated video clips. Researcher suggest in Neuropsychologia this may contribute to problems with social interaction, characteristic of autism.

"The way people move their bodies tells us a lot about their feelings or intentions, and we use this information on a daily basis to communicate with each other"

Anthony Atkinson
Lead Author

"We use others' body movements and postures, as well as people's faces and voices, to gauge their feelings," said Anthony Atkinson, who led the research. "People with autism are less able to use these cues to make accurate judgements about how others are feeling. "We now need to look further to see how exactly this happens and how this may combine with potential difficulties in attention."

It is thought as many as half a million people in the UK have a form of autism, a lifelong developmental disability which can severely affect how a person makes sense of the world around them.

Source: Neurpsychologia