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The role of stereotypies in overselectivity process in Rett syndrome
Rosa Angela Fabio1, Samantha Giannatiempo, Alessandro Antonietti
1Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano, Italy. rosaangela.fabio@unicatt.it
Abstract:
Ten Rett syndrome (RS) girls and 10 control girls executed an attentional task in which a complex stimulus was shown followed by individual stimuli presented with distractors. Participants had to discriminate previously presented stimuli from distractors. RS girls carried out the task both in a condition with the containment of stereotypies and in a no-containment condition. Overselectivity occurred in RS since patients failed to discriminate about 1/3 of the individual stimuli. There were no statistical differences with respect to the number of correct responses in the two conditions; RS girls learned quickly when their stereotypies were contained as opposed to when the containment of stereotypies was lacking.
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