Ψυχάγειν Καβάλα Ψυχοθεραπεία

Poster presentation at the 9^th European Conference on Psychologigical Assessment, Thessaloniki Greece.

     One of the main characteristics of children with Asperger syndrome is the lack of emotional response to the verbal and non-verbal displays of others (ICD-10, DSM-IV).

Through our long clinical experience, we observed that teaching children with Asperger syndrome how to recognize other people’s emotions and give reason to them could contribute significantly to the improvement of their social behaviour.

In order to test the above hypothesis, a specific treatment program was implemented in the cases of five children with Asperger syndrome aged 5 to 10 years old. They were assessed pre- and post-intervention with the DSM-IV criteria, parent interview and clinical observation. Moreover, a questionnaire was created by the researchers, based on the DSM-IV criteria and the “three domains of impairment” of Wing (1998) for children’s social behaviour.

According to the results, several of the DSM-IV criteria for Asperger syndrome -like the lack of relationships with peers, the absence of eye contact and mental representations- didn’t apply anymore to the subjects of the study post-intervention        

In this study, it is argued that due to the emotional dysfunction of children with Asperger syndrome, the innate cognitive mechanism of causal attributions is impaired regarding the reception of non-verbal messages. As a consequence of the inadequate reasoning, the comprehension of others’ behaviour is impaired in these children. These difficulties seem to form and establish a dysfunctional “attitude” in the communication pattern of children with Asperger syndrome.