Outline of Presentation:

The human brain is very sensitive to context and this contextual sensitivity plays a crucial role in many cognitive abilities that are affected in ASD, such as face perception, emotion recognition, the understanding of language and communication, and problem solving. We will present autism spectrum disorders as a form of blindness, more in specific context blindness. The concept of context blindness unifies the existing cognitive models in autism (theory of mind/extreme male brain, executive functioning, central coherence) and offers an unique and practical understanding of autism, resulting in a more autism friendly approach.

Topics that will be covered are:

* What is context and why is contextual sensitivity pivotal in everyday perception and information processing?
* Autism as context blindness: how can the difficulties in social interaction, communication and the lack of flexibility, seen in ASD, be linked to a lack of contextual sensitivity?
o Context and its role in understanding the behavior and mind of other people;
o Contextual sensitivity in communication (verbal and non-verbal);
o Context blindness and lack of flexibility in behavior
* Understanding autism as context blindness is the cornerstone of an autism friendly approach: pushing the “context-button” helps people with ASD to understand the world around them and to cope with its demands.