Abstract
In this talk I consider the case for the specificity and primacy of the social cognitive impairment in autism. I review evidence for domain-specific social cognitive difficulties and evidence for domain-general non-social cognitive difficulties in areas of representational understanding, attention allocation and sensory processing, concluding that we should focus more explicitly on clinically valid features for insights on the integration of ‘social’ and ‘non-social’ cognition.
CV Professor Susan Leekam
Chair in Autism, Director of Wales Autism Research Centre, School of Psychology, Cardiff University (see http://psych.cf.ac.uk/contactsandpeople/leekamsr.php)
Sue Leekam was appointed Chair in Autism at Cardiff University in 2009. She was previously Professor of Developmental Psychology at Durham University. She completed a DPhil in Experimental Psychology at Sussex University followed by postdoctoral, lecturer and senior lecturer appointments at La Trobe University, Australia and at the University of Kent.