Must attend to and process large amounts of orally presented information.

Must attend to and process large amounts of orally presented information. The three different types of information (physical, mental, emotional) allowed us to examine if it was the cognitive skill of drawing an inference that was difficult or if it was the type of information (visible/experiential) vs. internal states that was challenging for individuals with ASD. Comparing two different types of internal states would provide information on whether it was abstract information in general or more specific types of abstract information (mental thinking vs. emotional reaction) that was potentially challenging and was consistent with recent work suggesting that these two types of theory-of-mind (cognitive vs. affective) are dissociable (Shamay-Tsoory, 2011). Predicted Results The predictions were as follows: a) If drawing an inference in general is the problem, then the individuals with ASD would have poor performance across all of the items despite information content; however, b) if making inferences about abstract information is what is difficult, physical causation would be less challenging then mental and emotional states for individuals with ASD based on the assumption that these individuals have experiential knowledge about physical situations and less understanding of ToM; finally, c) if a specific type of deficit in ToM, or making inferences about the thoughts of others in general or emotion related content, is the problem, then the individuals with ASD would give fewer appropriate responses to items that incorporated an interpretation of the type of thoughts theJ Autism Dev Disord. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 September 01.Bodner et al.Pagecharacters were thinking. Therefore, examination of the performance of individuals with ASD on the PIT will provide information as to whether the cognitive skill of drawing an inference is difficult overall or whether the type of information about which the inference is being made is an important factor to impaired performance.Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptMethodsParticipants The participants were 86 older children and adolescents and adults with ASD and 65 ageand Enzastaurin manufacturer ability-matched typically developing controls (TD) who were all between the ages of 10 and 45 years. The group with ASD consisted of 37 older children and adolescents (between 10 ?16 years) and 49 adults (between 17 ?45 years), and the TD group consisted of 16 older children and adolescents and 49 adults. The two groups (ASD and TD) were group matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES: Hollingshead 1975), and Full Scale IQ, Verbal IQ, and Performance IQ as assessed by the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI: Wechsler 1999). One participant received the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Four adult participants with ASD did not report SES. All participants had full scale IQs greater than 85, were able to communicate in complete spoken sentences, did not have LY317615 biological activity attention or behavioral problems that prevented them from completing testing, did not have any associated or causative genetic, metabolic, or infectious conditions, were in good medical health, and had no history of seizures, birth injury, or head trauma. See Table 1 for participant information by diagnostic group. The diagnosis of autism for participants with ASD was established using two structured research diagnostic instruments, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic (ADOS-G: Lord et al. 2000).Must attend to and process large amounts of orally presented information. The three different types of information (physical, mental, emotional) allowed us to examine if it was the cognitive skill of drawing an inference that was difficult or if it was the type of information (visible/experiential) vs. internal states that was challenging for individuals with ASD. Comparing two different types of internal states would provide information on whether it was abstract information in general or more specific types of abstract information (mental thinking vs. emotional reaction) that was potentially challenging and was consistent with recent work suggesting that these two types of theory-of-mind (cognitive vs. affective) are dissociable (Shamay-Tsoory, 2011). Predicted Results The predictions were as follows: a) If drawing an inference in general is the problem, then the individuals with ASD would have poor performance across all of the items despite information content; however, b) if making inferences about abstract information is what is difficult, physical causation would be less challenging then mental and emotional states for individuals with ASD based on the assumption that these individuals have experiential knowledge about physical situations and less understanding of ToM; finally, c) if a specific type of deficit in ToM, or making inferences about the thoughts of others in general or emotion related content, is the problem, then the individuals with ASD would give fewer appropriate responses to items that incorporated an interpretation of the type of thoughts theJ Autism Dev Disord. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 September 01.Bodner et al.Pagecharacters were thinking. Therefore, examination of the performance of individuals with ASD on the PIT will provide information as to whether the cognitive skill of drawing an inference is difficult overall or whether the type of information about which the inference is being made is an important factor to impaired performance.Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptMethodsParticipants The participants were 86 older children and adolescents and adults with ASD and 65 ageand ability-matched typically developing controls (TD) who were all between the ages of 10 and 45 years. The group with ASD consisted of 37 older children and adolescents (between 10 ?16 years) and 49 adults (between 17 ?45 years), and the TD group consisted of 16 older children and adolescents and 49 adults. The two groups (ASD and TD) were group matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES: Hollingshead 1975), and Full Scale IQ, Verbal IQ, and Performance IQ as assessed by the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI: Wechsler 1999). One participant received the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Four adult participants with ASD did not report SES. All participants had full scale IQs greater than 85, were able to communicate in complete spoken sentences, did not have attention or behavioral problems that prevented them from completing testing, did not have any associated or causative genetic, metabolic, or infectious conditions, were in good medical health, and had no history of seizures, birth injury, or head trauma. See Table 1 for participant information by diagnostic group. The diagnosis of autism for participants with ASD was established using two structured research diagnostic instruments, the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic (ADOS-G: Lord et al. 2000).