Dalila Esposito

Embodied cognition theories hold that cognitive processes are grounded in bodily states. Embodied processes in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have classically been investigated in studies on imitation. Several observations suggested that unlike typical individuals who are able of copying the model's actions from the model's position, individuals with ASD tend to reenact the model's actions from their own egocentric perspective. Here, we performed two behavioral experiments to directly test the ability of ASD individuals to adopt another person's point of view. In Experiment 1, participants had to explicitly judge the left/right location of a target object in a scene from their own or the actor's point of view (visual perspective taking task). In Experiment 2, participants had to perform left/right judgments on front‐facing or back‐facing human body images (own body transformation task). Both tasks can be solved by mentally simulating one's own body motion to...

BackgroundThe Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is a popular augmentative communication system frequently used with ‘nonverbal’ children with autism. Several studies suggested that PECS could represent an effective tool for promoting improvement of several social–communicative skills. Only sparse evidence is instead available on the long‐term effectiveness of this treatment system.AimsTo test the long‐term effects of PECS, for which a follow‐up study was conducted by assessing social–communicative skills in nonverbal preschool children with autism after 12 months from treatment completion.Methods & ProceduresTwo groups of children (N = 14) were assessed; one group had completed the PECS training and the other conventional language therapy (CLT). At follow‐up all children received the same pre‐ and post‐treatment assessment. Outcome measures were the following: Communication and Social domains of Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS); Language and Personal–Social s...