Finding a Solution : Adapting Psychological Interventions to Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome

Sammanfattning: Throughout my education I have found that the psychological interventions in use are largely tailored to the masses, and some may be ill suited for those from certain subpopulations such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Asperger's syndrome (AS). I investigated whether there are statistically significant neurological differences between those with high functioning ASD or Asperger's and those without, with the goal of using those differences to propose what aspects might be used to create new psychological interventions more suited to neurodivergent individuals. After a thorough literature search, I found that the areas seeming to be the common denominators marking out those with ASD or Asperger's were the amygdala and orbito frontal cortex and hippocampus. My hypothesis that such neurological differences could be used to infer new psychological interventions for treating depression did not find support. The hope is that this review will nevertheless serve to inspire other researchers to create new interventions.