Personal space regulation in childhood autism: Effects of social interaction and person's perspective
Studies in children with Typical Development (TD) and with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) revealed that autism affects the personal space regulation, influencing both its size (permeability) and its changes depending on social interaction (flexibility) Here, we investigate how the nature of social interaction (Cooperative vs. Uncooperative) and the person perspective influence permeability and flexibility of interpersonal distance. Moreover, we tested whether the deficit observed in ASD children, reflects the social impairment (SI) in daily interactions. The stop distance paradigm was used to measure the preferred distance between the participant and an unfamiliar adult (first person perspective, Experiment 1) and between two other people (third person perspective, Experiment 2) Interpersonal distance was measured before and after the interaction with a confederate. The Wing Subgroups Questionnaire was used to evaluate SI in everyday activities, and each ASD participant was accordingly assigned either to the lower (children with low social impairment [low SI ASD] or to the higher SI group (children with high social impairment [high SI ASD] We observed larger interpersonal distance (permeability) in both ASD groups compared to TD children. Moreover, depending on the nature of social interaction, a modulation of interpersonal distance (flexibility) was observed in TD children, both from the first and third person perspective. Similar findings were found in low SI but not in high SI ASD children, in Experiment 1. Conversely, in Experiment 2, no change was observed in both ASD groups. These findings reveal that SI severity and a person's perspective may account for the deficit observed in autism when flexibility, but not permeability, of personal space is considered. Autism Res 2017, 10: 144 154. (c) 2016 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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