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It is reported that the thesis section is available, to publish abstracts of postgraduate theses in the disciplinary field. Who submits your thesis, must present the title, abstract, key words (include Occupational Therapy), and a summary of 2 to 3 pages of your thesis. And `present it in Spanish, English and / or Portuguese.
Development of social cognition in people with autism spectrum disorder
Abstract
Introduction. The aim of this paper is to review the literature and answer the question: Do programs of intervention prove to develop
social cognition in persons with disorders of the autistic spectrum? Autism is defned by Kanner, Asperguer and Wing, who formulated
the symptomatic triad of autism. The Theory of the Mind (ToM), is the ability to attribute mental states to other persons, different
from oneself, gives an explanation for three symptoms (Wing, Contributions of ToM). We review various authors who contributed by
empirical research of ToM from Premack and Woodruff (1978) occupying the concept for the frst time, to Baron-Cohen (2001) that
centred his research on studies of ToM in children with autism. Treatments proposed to develop social cognition in persons with ASD.
We reviewed 5 studies that propose diverse interventions to the development of ToM in children with ASD, the last one undertaken by
Stichter and collaborators, in 2012. Discussion. We analyze the scarcity of studies with small populations, which makes it diffcult to
extrapolate results. The need for assessments in real contexts is analized; further studies of systematized programs of what is considered
to be the control group; representative samples and follow-ups with a group prolonged to evaluate the generalization of the learning.
Finally, we report potential contributions to occupational therapy research and treatment programs.
