To what extent do children with a pervasive developmental disorder experience the desire for social interaction?

The experience of social support and the feeling of connectedness in essential
for the well-being of people. Social interaction is not a matter of course for
children with an autism spectrum disorder (or pervasive developmental
disorder). Impairments in social interaction are considered to be the core of
these disorders. These impairments are expressed by means of impairments is
nonverbal behaviours during social interactions, lack of social and emotional
reciprocity, deceased social involvement and the failure to develop peer
relationships. These impairments influence both the child and its environment.
It is assumed that children with an autism spectrum disorder want to make
contact with other, but lack the skills to do so. By this they might get caught
in a vicious circle and become lonely. The question whether these children have
the desire to make contact remains unanswered so far. Especially, the lack of
appropriate assessments seems to play a role. A new research line might offer a
solution. There is a growing interest for approach- and avoidance behaviour.
The idea is that positive evaluated stimuli elicit an approach tendency,
whereas negative evaluated stimuli elicit an avoidance tendency. The response
can be assessed with the aid of recently developed implicit computer tasks. In
fact, a task has been developed with aim to assess de unconscious desire for
contact.

The main purpose of the proposed study is to explore to what extent children
suffering from a PDD experience the desire for social interaction. Both the
explicit desires for social interaction as well as the presense of automatic
approach behaviour are of interest. In addition, the relation between the
desire to make contact and the level of social impairments, the level of social
interaction, the level of perceived social acceptance and loneliness will be
explored.

The study is a combination of a between- and within-subject design. A group of
children with an autism spectrum disorder and a group of children without an
autism spectrum disorder will be compared. The relation between the desire to
make contact and the level of social impairments, the level of social
interaction, the level of perceived social acceptance and loneliness will be
explored within the groups. The study will be non-invasive and crossectional.

There are no risks associated with this study. The load for the children is
minimal. They will be tested once and this will take about 30 minutes. It is
expected that the children will not evaluated the tasks as tiresome. The
required information that can be gathered through the parents and the teachers
will be gathered through them instead of the children. It will take about 30
minutes for the parents and about 10 minutes for the teachers to comply the
questionnaires.