Frith, Uta: transcript of a video interview (27- and 28-Nov-2007)

Abstract

Uta Frith is a world expert in autism spectrum disorders. She was one of the first in the 1960’s to assess the alterations in brain function that underlie autism, at a time when the general view was that autism was an emotional disorder with a psychological basis. Frith believed that a specific neural fault was responsible for the abnormal mental development, and by psychological testing she probed the cognitive deficits of autism. In the 1980’s she co-developed a theory that suggested that autistic individuals lacked a “theory of mind”. This refers to the mind’s ability to think about itself and about the minds of other people, which is essential for engaging in complex social activity. Most recently she has applied brain imaging techniques to study the brain mechanisms that underlie 'theory of mind'.