Self-awareness in Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate aspects of self-awareness in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Given widely accepted assumptions that “the self” is not a unitary construct, but is instead multifaceted, this thesis explored the extent to which impairments in self-awareness may be “domain-specific”. The nine experimental tasks reported in this thesis explored several aspects of self-awareness in children and adults with ASD, including awareness of the physical self, conceptual self, and mental self. Overall, the results of these studies suggest that individuals with ASD demonstrate selective impairments in only some aspects of self-awareness. It is suggested that the pattern of results reported in this thesis best support the suggestion that physical self-awareness is intact in individuals with ASD, whilst psychological self- awareness is impaired. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for our current understanding of self-awareness in autism spectrum disorder, and self- awareness in typical development, are discussed.