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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as a developmental-neuro disorder, is a disorder that creates impairments in the cognitive performances, such as memory, communication ability and language. One of the determining levels in the individuals’ social life is the ability to produce narrative discourse which entails applying linguistic and cognitive knowledge and skills simultaneously. The purpose of the present study was to provide a comparative study of the reference representation, as a narrative fundamental element, by using referential expressions based on the six cognitive statuses proposed in Gundel, Hedberg, & Zacharski’s (1993) “Givenness Hierarchy” in the narratives produced by Persian-speaking children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and typically developed (TD) children regarding their age. To this end, 24 children with high-functioning autism and 24 typically developed children, with the age 7, 9, 11 years old (each age group consisting of 8 subjects) were participated in this study. The narratives were elicited by the picture story book “Frog, where are you?” (Mayer, 1969). Then, the gathered data were analyzed by SPSS software. The results of the study indicated that there was differences between the two under study groups in representing the reference based on the cognitive statuses of “Givenness Hierarchy” by referential expressions. Furthermore, the age increase had no effect on the reference representation based on the cognitive statuses of “Givenness Hierarchy” in children with high-functioning autism’s narratives, in contrast to typically developed children’s narratives.

The aim of this article is to determine the effectiveness of brief object relations psychotherapy on reduction of interpersonal sensitivity, interpersonal awareness and need for approval of individuals with Avoidant Personality syndrome. This is a Single – Subject A-B design with multiple baseline and one month following up. Statistical society consisted of all individuals 18 to 30 years old who referred to the Psychology Clinic of Faculty of Education and Psychology of Ferdowsi University after seeing the announcements of research design between February 2016 and March 2016. Sampling method was purposeful. 34 individuals referred to the clinic and among them 3 individuals had Avoidant Personality syndrome which selected by Millon Clinical Multitaxial Inventory (MCMI-III) and Structural Clinical Interview for assessing Axis II (SCID-II). The research participants at baseline, fifth, tenth and sixteenth sessions and one month after the intervention, responded to the interpersonal Sensitivity Measure questionnaire (IPSM). The brief psychotherapy accomplished in 16 sessions. Data analysis was done by using visual analysis chart, effect size and percentages of overlapping and non-overlapping data. Results showed that, brief object relations psychotherapy reduced the interpersonal sensitivity, interpersonal awareness and need for approval of research participants significantly at the end of the therapy and in the following up period. It can be said that brief object relations psychotherapy is effective in reducing the symptoms of individuals with avoidant personality syndrome.