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This document is an editorial from the journal Frontiers in Psychology titled "Reviews in neuropsychology." The authors discuss the importance of neuropsychology in understanding the relationship between the human mind, behavior, and neural substrates. They highlight the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cognitive function and mental health and emphasize the need for reevaluating approaches to neuropsychological research. The editorial introduces a research topic that includes five contributions, including systematic reviews and a meta-analysis, covering topics such as emotion processing in individuals with mild cognitive impairment, the impact of epilepsy on cognitive and linguistic skills in children with autism spectrum disorder, and the relationship between substance abuse and false memory formation. The authors also discuss the intersection of neuropsychology and education, emphasizing the importance of understanding the effects of education on the brain. The research presented in this topic aims to expand our understanding of neuropsychology and shape its trajectory in the future. [Extracted from the article]

IntroductionAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous, life-long, and complex condition. Youth diagnosed with ASD require several supports addressing core symptoms associated with the disorder, but also those resulting from co-occurring mental and physical health conditions. As a result, their care is overseen by numerous professionals spanning various service sectors, but communication between sectors is hindered due to the absence of a standardized assessment system to identify and triage youth to services. A paucity of information surrounding this population’s service use lingers and a siloed delivery system persists.MethodsUsing archival data collected from 1,020 youth between 12 and 18 years of age, this study explored service complexity among autistic youth with and without psychiatric and medical co-occurring conditions in Ontario, Canada. In doing so, a negative binomial regression was utilized to investigate which predisposing, enabling, and need variables were associated with service complexity.ResultsResults revealed that experiencing financial difficulties was not associated with service complexity. However, age, sex, caregiver distress, comorbidity, intellectual disability, and evaluated health status were significant predictors. More specifically, female youth and youth with distressed caregivers had greater mental health service complexity scores. Additionally, youth diagnosed with two or more conditions in addition to ASD who required longer durations of programming, controlling for other predictors, had greater mental health service complexity scores. Yet, youth with an intellectual disability had lower service complexity scores.DiscussionClinical implications of this study are discussed to inform future investments into mental health efforts for autistic youth.

Processing and recognizing facial expressions are key factors in human social interaction. Past research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties to decode facial expressions. Those difficulties are notably attributed to altered strategies in the visual scanning of expressive faces. Numerous studies have demonstrated the multiple benefits of exposure to pet dogs and service dogs on the interaction skills and psychosocial development of children with ASD. However, no study has investigated if those benefits also extend to the processing of facial expressions. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a service dog had an influence on facial expression processing skills of children with ASD. Two groups of 15 children with ASD, with and without a service dog, were compared using a facial expression recognition computer task while their ocular movements were measured using an eye-tracker. While the two groups did not differ in their accuracy and reaction time, results highlighted that children with ASD owning a service dog directed less attention toward areas that were not relevant to facial expression processing. They also displayed a more differentiated scanning of relevant facial features according to the displayed emotion (i.e., they spent more time on the mouth for joy than for anger, and vice versa for the eyes area). Results from the present study suggest that having a service dog and interacting with it on a daily basis may promote the development of specific visual exploration strategies for the processing of human faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processing and recognizing facial expressions are key factors in human social interaction. Past research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties to decode facial expressions. Those difficulties are notably attributed to altered strategies in the visual scanning of expressive faces. Numerous studies have demonstrated the multiple benefits of exposure to pet dogs and service dogs on the interaction skills and psychosocial development of children with ASD. However, no study has investigated if those benefits also extend to the processing of facial expressions. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a service dog had an influence on facial expression processing skills of children with ASD. Two groups of 15 children with ASD, with and without a service dog, were compared using a facial expression recognition computer task while their ocular movements were measured using an eye-tracker. While the two groups did not differ in their accuracy and reaction time, results highlighted that children with ASD owning a service dog directed less attention toward areas that were not relevant to facial expression processing. They also displayed a more differentiated scanning of relevant facial features according to the displayed emotion (i.e., they spent more time on the mouth for joy than for anger, and vice versa for the eyes area). Results from the present study suggest that having a service dog and interacting with it on a daily basis may promote the development of specific visual exploration strategies for the processing of human faces.

Objectives: "Attachment difficulties" is an umbrella term often used to describe various forms of non-secure attachment. Differentiating "attachment difficulties" from autism spectrum disorder (hereafter autism) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been characterized as challenging. Few studies have explored how this happens in practice, from the perspective of professionals. Design: Qualitative study. Methods: We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with (n = 17) healthcare professionals from five NHS Foundation Trusts in the United Kingdom. Participants were recruited using a combination of snowballing, convenience and purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using a thematic approach. Results: We identified six interrelated themes that might reflect difficulties with differential conceptualization. These include: a clinical lexicon of attachment; approaching attachment with caution; contextual factors; perceived characteristic behaviors; assessing attachment and adjacent supports; spotlighting intervention and dual conceptualization. Conclusion: Our results indicate some of the ways suspicions around attachment are raised in practice. We advocate for more dialogue between research and practice communities on issues of differential conceptualization. We call for collaboration between a panel of experts consisting of attachment and neurodevelopmental orientated practitioners and researchers, to clarify issues around differentiating between attachment difficulties, ASD, and ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives“Attachment difficulties” is an umbrella term often used to describe various forms of non-secure attachment. Differentiating “attachment difficulties” from autism spectrum disorder (hereafter autism) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been characterized as challenging. Few studies have explored how this happens in practice, from the perspective of professionals.DesignQualitative study.MethodsWe conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with (n = 17) healthcare professionals from five NHS Foundation Trusts in the United Kingdom. Participants were recruited using a combination of snowballing, convenience and purposive sampling. Data were analyzed using a thematic approach.ResultsWe identified six interrelated themes that might reflect difficulties with differential conceptualization. These include: a clinical lexicon of attachment; approaching attachment with caution; contextual factors; perceived characteristic behaviors; assessing attachment and adjacent supports; spotlighting intervention and dual conceptualization.ConclusionOur results indicate some of the ways suspicions around attachment are raised in practice. We advocate for more dialogue between research and practice communities on issues of differential conceptualization. We call for collaboration between a panel of experts consisting of attachment and neurodevelopmental orientated practitioners and researchers, to clarify issues around differentiating between attachment difficulties, ASD, and ADHD.

Perspective taking has been proposed to be impaired in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially when implicit processing is required. In narrative texts, language perception and interpretation is fundamentally guided by taking the perspective of a narrator. We studied perspective taking in the linguistic domain of so-called Free Indirect Discourse (FID), during which certain text segments have to be interpreted as the thoughts or utterances of a protagonist without explicitly being marked as thought or speech representations of that protagonist (as in direct or indirect discourse). Crucially, the correct interpretation of text segments as FID depends on the ability to detect which of the protagonists “stands out” against the others and is therefore identifiable as implicit thinker or speaker. This so-called “prominence” status of a protagonist is based on linguistic properties (e.g., grammatical function, referential expression), in other words, the perspective is “hidden” and has to be inferred from the text material. In order to test whether this implicit perspective taking ability that is required for the interpretation of FID is preserved in persons with ASD, we presented short texts with three sentences to adults with and without ASD. In the last sentence, the perspective was switched either to the more or the less prominent of two protagonists. Participants were asked to rate the texts regarding their naturalness. Both diagnostic groups rated sentences with FID anchored to the less prominent protagonist as less natural than sentences with FID anchored to the more prominent protagonist. Our results that the high-level perspective taking ability in written language that is required for the interpretation of FID is well preserved in persons with ASD supports the conclusion that language skills are highly elaborated in ASD so that even the challenging attribution of utterances to protagonists is possible if they are only implicitly given. We discuss the implications in the context of claims of impaired perspective taking in ASD as well as with regard to the underlying processing of FID.

Perspective taking has been proposed to be impaired in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially when implicit processing is required. In narrative texts, language perception and interpretation is fundamentally guided by taking the perspective of a narrator. We studied perspective taking in the linguistic domain of so-called Free Indirect Discourse (FID), during which certain text segments have to be interpreted as the thoughts or utterances of a protagonist without explicitly being marked as thought or speech representations of that protagonist (as in direct or indirect discourse). Crucially, the correct interpretation of text segments as FID depends on the ability to detect which of the protagonists "stands out" against the others and is therefore identifiable as implicit thinker or speaker. This so-called "prominence" status of a protagonist is based on linguistic properties (e.g., grammatical function , referential expression), in other words, the perspective is "hidden" and has to be inferred from the text material. In order to test whether this implicit perspective taking ability that is required for the interpretation of FID is preserved in persons with ASD, we presented short texts with three sentences to adults with and without ASD. In the last sentence, the perspective was switched either to the more or the less prominent of two protagonists. Participants were asked to rate the texts regarding their naturalness. Both diagnostic groups rated sentences with FID anchored to the less prominent protagonist as less natural than sentences with FID anchored to the more prominent protagonist. Our results that the high-level perspective taking ability in written language that is required for the interpretation of FID is well preserved in persons with ASD supports the conclusion that language skills are highly elaborated in ASD so that even the challenging attribution of utterances to protagonists is possible if they are only implicitly given. We discuss the implications in the context of claims of impaired perspective taking in ASD as well as with regard to the underlying processing of FID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexithymia is defined as a limited ability in the cognitive processing of emotions. Literature suggested its negative influence on interpersonal relationship, documenting elevated alexithymia in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) compared to control groups. However, the study of alexithymia in school-age children with ASD remains largely unexplored as well as its effect on specific child socioemotional outcomes such as quality of attachment relationships. This study examines alexithymia and perceived attachment to parents in twenty-four children with ASD (without intellectual disability) and 24 typically developing (TD) children (mean age 10 years) using the self-reported Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children (AQC) and the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA). Measures of family SES as well as child intelligence were collected. Data revealed that ASD children showed higher levels of Alexithymia compared to TD group. In addition, 21% of participants with ASD exceed alexithymia categorical cut-off. By contrast, no difference emerged in the perception of attachment to parents. Moreover, alexithymia, but not ASD status, was found to predictive of child perception of attachment to parents. We observed no significant effect of child age and verbal IQ. Our findings showed that alexithymia was more common in children with ASD, whereas attachment was similar between groups. Difficulties in identifying and describing one’s own feelings may hinder the construction of a positive representation of parent-child attachment relationship regardless of child clinical status. Thus, alexithymia seems to play a key role on the way school-age children with and without ASD perceive their relationship with their parents.

Training on complements in English, German, and Mandarin has been reported to trigger improvements on both complements and Theory of Mind (ToM), with typically developing (TD) pre-schoolers on the verge of developing these skills (Hale and Tager-Flusberg, 2003; Lohmann and Tomasello, 2003; Shuliang et al., 2014). In the current study, we build on the idea that increasing mastery of complementation holds the promise of enhancing ToM, and seek (i) to replicate the positive effects observed in previous work for this effect in French-speaking TD children, and (ii) to pilot extending this to clinical children, more specifically those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), through exploring whether improvement in the latter, clinical groups follows that of the TD group. Sixty children with ToM difficulties, 16 with ASD (aged 5;6–11;8), 20 with DLD (aged 4;8–9;0) and 24 typically developing children aged (2;9–5;3 years), participated in a 4-week training program. Half received training targeting sentential complements and half received a control training targeting lexical skills. Complementation training, but not lexical training, led to a significant direct increase in complements, and also had the indirect effect of significantly boosting belief reasoning. TD and clinical groups followed the same patterns of performance. These results confirm previous findings in other languages for TD, and further suggest promising new directions for therapeutic programs addressing ToM delays in populations of different aetiologies, namely the incorporation of a motivating training on complementation.

Alexithymia is defined as a limited ability in the cognitive processing of emotions. Literature suggested its negative influence on interpersonal relationship, documenting elevated alexithymia in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) compared to control groups. However, the study of alexithymia in school-age children with ASD remains largely unexplored as well as its effect on specific child socioemotional outcomes such as quality of attachment relationships. This study examines alexithymia and perceived attachment to parents in twenty-four children with ASD (without intellectual disability) and 24 typically developing (TD) children (mean age 10 years) using the self-reported Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children (AQC) and the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA). Measures of family SES as well as child intelligence were collected. Data revealed that ASD children showed higher levels of Alexithymia compared to TD group. In addition, 21% of participants with ASD exceed alexithymia categorical cut-off. By contrast, no difference emerged in the perception of attachment to parents. Moreover, alexithymia, but not ASD status, was found to predictive of child perception of attachment to parents. We observed no significant effect of child age and verbal IQ. Our findings showed that alexithymia was more common in children with ASD, whereas attachment was similar between groups. Difficulties in identifying and describing one's own feelings may hinder the construction of a positive representation of parent-child attachment relationship regardless of child clinical status. Thus, alexithymia seems to play a key role on the way school-age children with and without ASD perceive their relationship with their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Training on complements in English, German, and Mandarin has been reported to trigger improvements on both complements and Theory of Mind (ToM), with typically developing (TD) pre-schoolers on the verge of developing these skills (Hale and Tager-Flusberg, 2003; Lohmann and Tomasello, 2003; Shuliang et al., 2014). In the current study, we build on the idea that increasing mastery of complementation holds the promise of enhancing ToM, and seek (i) to replicate the positive effects observed in previous work for this effect in French-speaking TD children, and (ii) to pilot extending this to clinical children, more specifically those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), through exploring whether improvement in the latter, clinical groups follows that of the TD group. Sixty children with ToM difficulties, 16 with ASD (aged 5;6–11;8), 20 with DLD (aged 4;8–9;0) and 24 typically developing children aged (2;9–5;3 years), participated in a 4-week training program. Half received training targeting sentential complements and half received a control training targeting lexical skills. Complementation training, but not lexical training, led to a significant direct increase in complements, and also had the indirect effect of significantly boosting belief reasoning. TD and clinical groups followed the same patterns of performance. These results confirm previous findings in other languages for TD, and further suggest promising new directions for therapeutic programs addressing ToM delays in populations of different aetiologies, namely the incorporation of a motivating training on complementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time is ripe to integrate burgeoning evidence of the important role of sensory and motor functioning in mental health within the National Institute of Mental Health's [NIMH] Research Domain Criteria [RDoC] framework (National Institute of Mental Health, n.d.a), a multi-dimensional method of characterizing mental functioning in health and disease across all neurobiological levels of analysis ranging from genetic to behavioral. As the importance of motor processing in psychopathology has been recognized (Bernard and Mittal, 2015; Garvey and Cuthbert, 2017; National Institute of Mental Health, 2019), here we focus on sensory processing. First, we review the current design of the RDoC matrix, noting sensory features missing despite their prevalence in multiple mental illnesses. We identify two missing classes of sensory symptoms that we widely define as (1) sensory processing, including sensory sensitivity and active sensing, and (2) domains of perceptual signaling, including interoception and proprioception, which are currently absent or underdeveloped in the perception construct of the cognitive systems domain. Then, we describe the neurobiological basis of these psychological constructs and examine why these sensory features are important for understanding psychopathology. Where appropriate, we examine links between sensory processing and the domains currently included in the RDoC matrix. Throughout, we emphasize how the addition of these sensory features to the RDoC matrix is important for understanding a range of mental health disorders. We conclude with the suggestion that a separate sensation and perception domain can enhance the current RDoC framework, while discussing what we see as important principles and promising directions for the future development and use of the RDoC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with neurodevelopmental disorders often show impairments in sensory processing (SP) and higher functions. The main objective of this study was to compare SP, praxis and social participation (SOC) in four groups of children: ASD Group (n = 21), ADHD Group (n = 21), ASD+ADHD Group (n = 21), and Comparison Group (n = 27). Participants were the parents and teachers of these children who were 5–8 years old (M = 6.32). They completed the Sensory Processing Measure (SPM) to evaluate the sensory profile, praxis and SOC of the children in both the home and classroom contexts. In the home context, the most affected was the ASD+ADHD group. The ADHD group obtained higher scores than the ASD group on the Body Awareness (BOD) subscale, indicating a higher level of dysfunction. The ASD group, however, did not obtain higher scores than the ADHD group on any subscale. In the classroom context, the most affected were the two ASD groups: the ASD+ADHD group obtained higher scores than the ADHD group on the Hearing (HEA) and Social Participation (SOC) subscales, and the ASD group obtained higher scores than the ADHD group on the SOC subscale. Regarding sensory modalities, difficulties in proprioception seem to be more characteristic to the ADHD condition. As for higher-level functioning, social difficulties seem to be more characteristic to the ASD condition. Differences between the two contexts were only found in the ASD group, which could be related to contextual hyperselectivity, an inherent autistic feature. Despite possible individual differences, specific intervention programs should be developed to improve the sensory challenges faced by children with different diagnoses.

Interacting with toys and other people is fundamental for developing social communication skills. However, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized by having a significant impairment in social interaction, which often leads to deficits in play skills. For this reason, methods of teaching play skills to young children with ASD have been well documented. Although previous studies have examined a variety of instructional strategies for teaching skills, few studies have evaluated the potential of using robotic devices. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether automatic feedback provided by colored lights and vibration via paired robotic devices, COLOLO, facilitates social play behaviors in children with ASD. We also explore how social play relates to social interaction. COLOLO is a system of paired spherical devices covered with soft fabric. All participants in this study were recruited as volunteers through the Department of Psychology at Keio University. The pilot study included three participants diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs; 5- to 6-year-old boys), and compared experimental conditions with and without automatic feedback from the devices (colored lights and vibration). The results indicated that the participants in the condition that included feedback from the devices exhibited increased rates of ball contact and looking at the therapist’s ball, but did not exhibit increased rates of eye contact or positive affect. In the experimental study, a systematic replication of the pilot study was performed with three other participants diagnosed with PDDs (3- to 6-year-old boys), using an A-B-A-B design. Again, the results demonstrated that, in the condition with colored lights and vibration, the children increased ball contact as well as looking at the therapist’s ball. However, the results did not show the effect of automatic feedback consistently for three children. These findings are discussed in terms of the potential of paired robotic devices as a method to facilitate social play for children with ASD.

Although pretend play has long been linked to children’s normative cognitive development, inconsistent findings call for greater rigor in examining this relation (Lillard et al., 2013). Spontaneous pretend play is often impacted in atypical development, notably in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Since ASD traits exist along a continuum in the general population, investigating how pretend play varies across the range of ASD symptoms by indexing variations in ASD traits in both typically-developing and ASD populations may provide insight into how ASD symptoms may influence the relation between pretend play and associated processes in cognitive development. This study used rigorous observational methods to assess spontaneous pretend play. Specifically, 5-minute free-play sessions with two discrete toy sets were double-coded by blinded coders (coder assignment counterbalanced). Key facets of pretense development (attribution of pretend properties, object substitution, imaginary objects) were examined. These facets of pretend play production were then analyzed in relation to ASD symptoms, as well as plausible, long-theorized correlates (Theory of Mind [ToM], verbal ability, familiarity, and interest in specific toys). Forty children (Mage = 6;5, SDage = 1.45; 29 male), six of whom met the threshold for ASD diagnosis via parent-reported ASD symptoms, participated in play sessions and completed measures of verbal IQ and ToM. Besides the measure of child ASD symptoms, parents completed a survey of their child’s interest in and familiarity with the play session toys. Overall, greater ToM predicted more attribution of pretend properties, and more interest in the toys presented predicted more object substitution. In terms of overall pretend play production, two results were counterintuitive. First, among children with more ASD symptoms, verbal ability marginally negatively predicted pretend play production. Second, among children with fewer ASD symptoms, ToM negatively predicted pretend play production. Further probing revealed that the negative effect of ASD symptoms on pretend play was simultaneously moderated by both variables: low ToM and high verbal ability both related to less pretend play production among children with more ASD symptoms. Implications for assessment and subsequent treatment for pretend ability among children with varying degrees of ASD symptoms, as well as for future research, are discussed.

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous, life-long, and complex condition. Youth diagnosed with ASD require several supports addressing core symptoms associated with the disorder, but also those resulting from co-occurring mental and physical health conditions. As a result, their care is overseen by numerous professionals spanning various service sectors, but communication between sectors is hindered due to the absence of a standardized assessment system to identify and triage youth to services. A paucity of information surrounding this population's service use lingers and a siloed delivery system persists., Methods: Using archival data collected from 1,020 youth between 12 and 18 years of age, this study explored service complexity among autistic youth with and without psychiatric and medical co-occurring conditions in Ontario, Canada. In doing so, a negative binomial regression was utilized to investigate which predisposing, enabling, and need variables were associated with service complexity., Results: Results revealed that experiencing financial difficulties was not associated with service complexity. However, age, sex, caregiver distress, comorbidity, intellectual disability, and evaluated health status were significant predictors. More specifically, female youth and youth with distressed caregivers had greater mental health service complexity scores. Additionally, youth diagnosed with two or more conditions in addition to ASD who required longer durations of programming, controlling for other predictors, had greater mental health service complexity scores. Yet, youth with an intellectual disability had lower service complexity scores., Discussion: Clinical implications of this study are discussed to inform future investments into mental health efforts for autistic youth., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Semovski, King, Lapshina and Stewart.)

Despite a lack of agreement concerning the age at which adult-like patterns of handedness emerge, it is generally understood that hand preference presents early in life and development is variable. Young children (ages 3-5 years) are described as having weak hand preference; however, older children (ages 7-10 years) display stronger patterns. Here, strength of hand preference refers to reliable use of the preferred hand. In comparison to their typically-developing (TD) peers, individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are described as having a weak hand preference. This study aimed to extend the literature to assess three measures of handedness (Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire – WHQ, Annett Pegboard – AP and WatHand Cabinet Test – WHCT) in two repeated sessions. The first research question aimed to delineate if the strength of hand use changes across testing sessions as a function of age in typical development. Right-handed children reported a reliable preference for the right hand on the WHQ, similar to adults. A marginally significant difference was revealed between 3- to 4- and 5- to 6-year-olds on the AP. This was attributed to weak lateralization in 3- to 4-year-olds, where the establishment of hand preference by age 6 leads to superior performance with the preferred hand in 5- to 6-year-olds. Finally, for the WHCT, 3- to 4-year-olds had the highest bimanual score, indicating use of the same hand to lift the cabinet door and retrieve an object. It is likely that the task was not motorically complex enough to drive preferred hand selection for older participants. The second research question sought to determine if there is difference between typically-developing children and children with ASD. No differences were revealed; however, children with ASD did display variable AP performance, providing partial support for previous literature. Findings will be discussed in light of relevant literature.

Adaptation and aftereffect are well-known procedures for exploring our neural representation of visual stimuli. It has been reported that they occur in face identity, facial expressions, and low-level visual features. This method has two primary advantages. One is to reveal the common or shared process of faces, that is, the overlapped or discrete representation of face identities or facial expressions. The other is to investigate the coding system or theory of face processing that underlies the ability to recognize faces. This study aims to organize recent research to guide the reader into the field of face adaptation and its aftereffect and to suggest possible future expansions in the use of this paradigm. To achieve this, we reviewed the behavioral short-term aftereffect studies on face identity (i.e., who it is) and facial expressions (i.e., what expressions such as happiness and anger are expressed), and summarized their findings about the neural representation of faces. First, we summarize the basic characteristics of face aftereffects compared to simple visual features to clarify that facial aftereffects occur at a different stage and are not inherited or combinations of low-level visual features. Next, we introduce the norm-based coding hypothesis, which is one of the theories used to represent face identity and facial expressions, and adaptation is a commonly used procedure to examine this. Subsequently, we reviewed studies that applied this paradigm to immature or impaired face recognition (i.e., children and individuals with autism spectrum disorder or prosopagnosia) and examined the relationships between their poor recognition performance and representations. Moreover, we reviewed studies dealing with the representation of non-presented faces and social signals conveyed via faces and discussed that the face adaptation paradigm is also appropriate for these types of examinations. Finally, we summarize the research conducted to date and propose a new direction for the face adaptation paradigm., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Minemoto and Ueda.)

Competing Interests: PL was employed by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapists. The remaining author declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Interacting with toys and other people is fundamental for developing social communication skills. However, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized by having a significant impairment in social interaction, which often leads to deficits in play skills. For this reason, methods of teaching play skills to young children with ASD have been well documented. Although previous studies have examined a variety of instructional strategies for teaching skills, few studies have evaluated the potential of using robotic devices. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether automatic feedback provided by colored lights and vibration via paired robotic devices, COLOLO, facilitates social play behaviors in children with ASD. We also explore how social play relates to social interaction. COLOLO is a system of paired spherical devices covered with soft fabric. All participants in this study were recruited as volunteers through the Department of Psychology at Keio University. The pilot study included three participants diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs; 5- to 6-year-old boys), and compared experimental conditions with and without automatic feedback from the devices (colored lights and vibration). The results indicated that the participants in the condition that included feedback from the devices exhibited increased rates of ball contact and looking at the therapist's ball, but did not exhibit increased rates of eye contact or positive affect. In the experimental study, a systematic replication of the pilot study was performed with three other participants diagnosed with PDDs (3- to 6-year-old boys), using an A-B-A-B design. Again, the results demonstrated that, in the condition with colored lights and vibration, the children increased ball contact as well as looking at the therapist's ball. However, the results did not show the effect of automatic feedback consistently for three children. These findings are discussed in terms of the potential of paired robotic devices as a method to facilitate social play for children with ASD.

Despite a lack of agreement concerning the age at which adult-like patterns of handedness emerge, it is generally understood that hand preference presents early in life and development is variable. Young children (ages 3-5 years) are described as having weak hand preference; however, older children (ages 7-10 years) display stronger patterns. Here, strength of hand preference refers to reliable use of the preferred hand. In comparison to their typically developing (TD) peers, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are described as having a weak hand preference. This study aimed to extend the literature to assess three measures of handedness (Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire - WHQ, Annett pegboard - AP, and WatHand Cabinet Test - WHCT) in two repeated sessions. The first research question aimed to delineate if the strength of hand use changes across testing sessions as a function of age in typical development. Right-handed children reported a reliable preference for the right hand on the WHQ, similar to adults. A marginally significant difference was revealed between 3- to 4- and 5- to 6-year-olds on the AP. This was attributed to weak lateralization in 3- to 4-year-olds, where the establishment of hand preference by age 6 leads to superior performance with the preferred hand in 5- to 6-year-olds. Finally, for the WHCT, 3- to 4-year-olds had the highest bimanual score, indicating use of the same hand to lift the cabinet door and retrieve an object. It is likely that the task was not motorically complex enough to drive preferred hand selection for older participants. The second research question sought to determine if there is difference between (TD) children and children with ASD. No differences were revealed; however, children with ASD did display variable AP performance, providing partial support for previous literature. Findings will be discussed in light of relevant literature.