Trauma and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Review, Proposed Treatment Adaptations and Future Directions

“If we do not look for it, we do not see it”: Clinicians' experiences and understanding of identifying post‐traumatic stress disorder in adults with autism and intellectual disability

“…Post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common sequela to experiencing potentially traumatic events such as threatened or witnessed death, actual or threatened serious injury, or sexual violence (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Ehlers & Clark, 2000). Individuals with co‐occurring autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) are more frequently exposed to potentially traumatic events (Dinkler et al, 2017; Gotby, Lichtenstein, Långström, & Pettersson, 2018; McDonnell et al, 2019; Sullivan & Knutson, 2000) and may be particularly vulnerable to the development of PTSD (Brewin, Rumball, & Happé, 2019; Kerns, Newschaffer, & Berkowitz, 2015; Peterson et al, 2019). Perception of the traumatic event is critical to the subsequent risk of developing PTSD (Ehlers & Clark, 2000), and perception of events in individuals with ASD and ID may be altered due to a number of differences, including sensory processing issues, intellectual capacity, verbal skills, coping strategies, social support and previous life experiences (Brewin et al, 2019; Daveney, Hassiotis, Katona, Matcham, & Sen, 2019; Mason‐Roberts et al, 2018; McCarthy, Blanco, Gaus, Razza, & Tomasulo, 2017; Wigham & Emerson, 2015).…”

Neuromarketing Highlights in How Asperger Syndrome Youth Perceive Advertising

“…Interest in stories is most likely more determinant in this group than the level of complexity. This difference indicates that for the AS audience, comprehension difficulty is the main variable that determines whether a commercial is attractive or awakens feelings, and this variable greatly determines the importance of other elements in the commercial ( Howlin, 2003 ; Kim et al, 2014 ; Peterson et al, 2019 ).…”

“…However, even when their expressive language ability is intact, they often have a hard time developing social communication skills. These include effective communication of emotion and experience, engaging in reciprocal conversations, precise interpretation of figurative language (e.g., idiomsand metaphors), understanding contextual cues in conversation, and interpreting non-verbal cues in communication such as subtleties in body and facial language and voice intonation ( Howlin, 2003 ; Kim et al, 2014 ; Peterson et al, 2019 ). This would have a direct impact on understanding and interpreting language in advertising material where, depending on the medium, these kinds of resources are widely employed to communicate adequately and achieve certain objectives.…”

“…People with ASD also show a deficit in ‘Theory of Mind’ or ToM, an aspect of social cognition described as the ability to identify and understand the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others ( Baron-Cohen et al, 2001 ; Peterson et al, 2019 ). ToM deficits cause social challenges, including difficulties in understanding and predicting the emotional states, behaviors, and outlook of other people, difficulties in inferring the motivations and intentions behind another person’s behavior and actions, and difficulties in distinguishing fact from fiction ( Frith and Frith, 2006 ).…”

“…Studies have shown that people with ASD have a hard time carrying out classification tasks at a basic level when such a concept is used ( Shulman et al, 1995 ). Many people with ASD exhibit learning issues, including difficulties in generalizing, a limited capacity to absorb new information, and slow processing speed ( Peterson et al, 2019 ). Interestingly, however, despite deficiencies in abstract reasoning, many people with ASD show typically developed, or even advanced, visual-spatial processing skills, including the processing of visual patterns and object details ( Kumar, 2013 ).…”