Comportamento altruísta em idade pré-escolar: comparação entre transtorno do espectro autista e síndrome de Down

• Ano de defesa: 2017
• Autor(a) principal: Pereira, Elisabete Fernandes Rodrigues
• Orientador(a): Osório, Ana Alexandra Caldas
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
• Palavras-chave em Português: transtorno do espectro autista; síndrome de Down; comportamento altruísta; comportamento pró-social
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA::PSICOLOGIA DO ENSINO E DA APRENDIZAGEM
• Link de acesso: http://dspace.mackenzie.br/handle/10899/22715

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder. Given the early onset of its symptoms, investigating early socio-cognitive and socio-emotional developmental trajectories is very important. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of studying prosocial behaviors in typical children. In light of the evidence from previous studies, the aim of this project was to compare the levels of altruistic behavior in children with an ASD and children with Down syndrome (DS) in the preschool age. We analyzed 29 participants (15 ASD and 14 DS). Both groups were matched for chronological age and intellectual abilities. The age of the children of both groups was between 2 years and 8 months and 6 years and 2 months. The social, behavioral and intellectual abilities of both groups were evaluated through several tests: a) CARS- Childhood Autism Rating Scale; b) SON-R 2 1/2 - 7 [a] – Nonverbal Intelligence Test and c) tasks of altruistic behavior. T-tests revealed no differences in the mean age and IQ of the both groups. As expected, we observed that the ASD group obtained higher scores in the CARS compared to DS. Regarding the altruistic behavior tasks, we observed that children with ASD engaged significantly less in altruistic behavior as compared to the DS group. For both groups, we found that cognitive abilities were unrelated to performance in the altruistic task. In contrast, for the ASD children, higher levels of autistic behaviors (as measured in the CARS) were associated with lower levels of altruistic behaviors. This study suggests that deficits in engaging in altruistic behaviors may be a feature of ASD in the preschool years.