Doll play provides opportunities for children to practice social skills by creating imaginary worlds, taking others' perspectives, and talking about others' internal states. Previous research using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) found a region over the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) was more active during solo doll play…

Humans need empathy to promote social interactions and to display prosocial behavior. Therefore, it is not surprising that low empathy skills are commonly seen as diagnostic features in several mental disorders. Empathy is an interesting topic in autism, since low empathy skills are responsible for the social difficulties that individuals with…

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrate atypical development, resulting in significant deficits in perspective-taking and observational learning. Children with ASD tend to have challenges in social interactions and academic performance, such as comprehending narrative texts, which heavily rely on accurate understanding of the…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects socio-emotional skills and perspective-taking abilities. Although social stories in a form of virtual reality program can help children with ASD, developing them and identifying appropriate responses might be subjective and thus challenging. Using Delphi method, and…

Games enable children to practice emotions in spaces that are free from actualized consequences. With thoughtful guidance, games can help children manage emotions, perspective-take, demonstrate empathic concern, and exhibit prosocial behaviors. Emerging research suggests that these competencies--also known as social and emotional learning (SEL)…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of a web-based, self-administered battery of assessments of social-emotional comprehension called "SELweb." Assessment modules measured children's ability to read facial expressions, infer others' perspectives, solve social problems, delay…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of a web-based, self-administered battery of assessments of social-emotional comprehension called "SELweb." Assessment modules measured children's ability to read facial expressions, infer others' perspectives, solve social problems, delay…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty inferring the private events of others, including private verbal behavior (e.g., thoughts), private emotional responses, and private establishing operations, often referred to as "perspective taking" by the general psychology community. Children with ASD also have…

Distinguishing characteristics of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are deficits in social communication and interaction. Point-of-view video modeling has the potential to address these deficits. Therefore, the literature review investigated research targeting social skills through the application of point-of-view video modeling.…

Until now children's attention to the beliefs of people they wish to persuade has been examined experimentally via tasks that were artificial in important respects. To determine whether such research has underestimated children's psychological perspective taking, two studies that manipulated task elements pertinent to ecological validity were…

This study compared cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and treatment-as-usual (TAU) in terms of effects on observed social communication-related autism symptom severity during unstructured play time at school for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Thirteen children with ASD (7-11 years old) were randomly assigned to 32 sessions of CBT…

This study examined parent-child emotion discourse, children's independent social information processing, and social skills outcomes in 146 families of 8-year-olds with and without developmental delays. Children's emergent social-cognitive understanding (internal state understanding, perspective taking, and causal reasoning and problem solving)…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the agreement between parent and teacher perceptions of specific social behaviors in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Method: Informant ratings were generated concerning 45 children with ASD between the ages of 5 and 14 years who were enrolled in social skills groups at 2 Midwestern…

Findings suggest that cognitive complexity plays an influential role in the development of children's ability to provide accounts for conversational deviance, as well as their ability to provide alternative strategies for the completion of conversations disrupted by improper turn-taking. Social perspective-taking and communication adaptation…

A study examined whether three children with autism could be trained in conversational skills and whether this would lead to changes in standard tests of theory of mind. The amount of shared interest exhibited by the children during conversations increased during training sessions and children made more responses that were appropriate. (Contains…