FOUNDATIONS FOR SELF-AWARENESS - AN EXPLORATION THROUGH AUTISM

Developmental psychopathology holds promise for elucidating the structure of self-awareness. Here we studied social emotions in matched groups of children and adolescents with and without autism. Our aims were to determine whether there are potentially dissociable aspects of self-awareness, and to reconsider how the qualities of young children's engagement with other persons influences the development of their sense of self.

Peter Hobson is Tavistock Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the University of London, and is based at the Tavistock Clinic and the Behavioural and Brain Sciences Unit, Institute of Child Health, University College London. He has a PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Cambridge. He is also a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst. His overriding interest is in the contribution of personal relations to early human development, and the developmental psychopathology of autism and other conditions in which social development has been compromised.

Gayathri Chidambi has a PhD in psychology from the University of London. Until recently she was a member of the Developmental Psychopathology Research Unit, Tavistock Clinic and University College, London. Her PhD studies on self-awareness in children and adolescents with autism have contributed to the present Monograph. She has also worked in a therapeutic capacity with children with autism at the Treehouse Trust, London.

Anthony Lee has a PhD in psychology from the University of London. In the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, London, and subsequently as a senior member of the Developmental Psychopathology Research Unit, Tavistock Clinic and University College, London, he spent almost two decades conducting experimental research in autism. He has recently qualified as a child psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, London.

Jessica Meyer is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Child Health, University College London and the Tavistock Clinic, London. She has substantial experience working with children with autism from both clinical and research perspectives. She completed her PhD at the University of Miami under the supervision of Dr. Peter Mundy, and completed her internship working with Dr. Nancy Minshew at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Her current research interests include the social relations and symbolic thinking of children and adolescents with autism, and the potential for fostering the development of children with this disorder.