SOCIAL AND AFFECTIVE COMPONENTS OF COMMUNICATIONThe goal of the Program Project as a whole is to study hierarchical levels of neural and cognitiveprocessing in children with neurodevelopmental disorders to better understand the functional organizationof these systems. Within this framework, the role of Project 3 will be to systematically examine the neural,psychophysiplogical, and information processing bases of major differences in social affective behavior inchildren with neurodevelopmental disorders of different nature and origin. Children withneurodevelopmental disorders often have significant impairments in social adaptation and socialcommunication, which impact their relationships with others. The mechanisms that are implicated in theseimpairments are poorly understood. The populations selected include genetically based Williams syndrome(WS), behaviorally defined High Functioning Autism (HFA) and Language Impairment (LI), as well aschildren with Early Unilateral Focal Lesions (FL), contrasted with typically developing (TD) controls. Theneurodevelopmental populations chosen include tendencies to extremes in social behavior, from those thatare socially ayoidant (HFA) to those that are socially driven (WS).
In Aim 1, we provide a systematiccharacterization of sociability and temperament across populations, based on theoretical models.
In Aim 2, experimental studies will evaluate autonpmic indices of information processing of social vs.non-social, visual and auditory, affective stimuli. A further aim is to examine how differences inunderlying sensory/perceptual processing (Project 1) and in spatial attention and working memory (Project2) are reflected as differences in information processing in the social context.
In Aim 3, we evaluate how thecharacteristic social-affective profiles of the populations (Aims 1, 2) relate to expressivity in social andnon-social, language and non-language contexts. We will utilize new tools of investigation forquantifying social and non-social behavior as novel contributions to understanding how aspects ofpersonality reflected in, e.g., narratives, language, and social interaction behaviors, converge withpsychophysiological profiles and receptive processing capabilities (Aim 2, Projects 1, 2), and at the level ofdiscourse (Project 4), to provide characterizations both bottom-up and top-down.
In Aim 4, we examine theintegrity of neural systems underlying social-affective behavior using high-resolution brain imagingacross the populations, each at a significant risk for differing problems in social functioning. In theseintegrated studies, we pursue new lines of investigation that will elucidate long-standing theoretical andclinical issues in differing social-affective profiles of neurodevelopmentally disabled populations. Thestudies will make a significant contribution toward understanding the interrelationships of the social andaffective components of communication and their underpinnings, elements that are central to humanexperience. Insights from these studies will add unique knowledge to our understanding of socialdevelopment as well as contribute to better-informed treatment methods in the future.
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