Abstract

This study was intended to compare RAD children with autistic children in social cognition. Also RAD children whose LIPS are above the average compared with those whose LIPS are below the average in social cognition. A social referencing and joint attention were used to examine the social cognition. 32 children(24 RAD, 8 autistic children) ranged in CA from 13 to 57 months. Of the 24 RAD children, 11 were matched as a group with the children who had autistic on MQ. Social referencing was measured by the children's gaze frequency which is one of the Kown's measurements(1990) in SSP. Two measures(language, language+gesture) of joint attention were obtained using the Mundy, Sigman and Kasari(1990). The results from this study read as follow. 1) A social referencing in SSP(Strange Situation Procedure) was RAD children> MQ-matched autistic children. 2) The RAD children did not show any significant difference from the autistic children about the social referencing to their mothers in distressed SSP. RAD children displayed avoidant behaviors and autistic children played with the toy without any reaction toward their mothers. 3) Joint attention was RAD children> MQ-matched autistic children 4) Both social referencing and joint attention experiments were not significantly correlated with MQ within the RAD children. The result of the present study indicated that RAD show significant difference from autistic disorder about the social cognition.