Age related differences of executive functioning problems in everyday life of children and adolescents in the autism spectrum.
High-functioning autism kids ask more yes-no questions because their inner speech is slow, not because they can't plan.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the kids the Twenty Questions Task. The kids had high-functioning autism, Asperger's, or were typically developing.
They watched how many yes-no questions each child asked to find a hidden object. They also tested IQ, planning, and language.
What they found
High-functioning autism kids needed more questions than the other two groups. Their planning scores were fine, but they talked through fewer ideas out loud.
The gap grew with age. Teens with autism showed the biggest slow-down, hinting that inner speech lags behind.
How this fits with other research
Bae et al. (2015) saw the same pattern in math word problems. Kids with autism solved fewer story problems even when math facts were intact. Both studies point to language use, not reasoning speed.
Ziermans et al. (2017) links the issue to verbal working memory. They found that weaker verbal WM predicted odd, tangential speech in autism teens. Poor inner speech storage may explain why extra questions are needed.
Austin et al. (2015) widens the lens. They tracked the same kids for years and saw adaptive skills fall further behind as broad executive problems grew. Whitehouse et al. (2014) narrows the blame to language-based EF, showing the drop is tied to how kids talk to themselves while solving problems, not to every EF skill.
Why it matters
When an autistic client stalls on verbal tasks, check their self-talk, not just their plan. Model short inner-speech prompts like 'What group should I ask about next?' and reward rapid questioning. Targeting verbal working memory with list-recall games may speed up everyday problem solving more than general EF drills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) adopt less efficient strategies than typically developing (TD) peers on the Twenty Questions Task (TQT), a measure of verbal problem-solving skills. Although problems with the TQT are typically associated with executive dysfunction, they have also been reported in children who are deaf, suggesting a role for atypical language development. To test the contribution of language history to ASD problem solving, TQT performance was compared in children with high-functioning autism (HFA), children with Asperger syndrome (AS) and TD children. The HFA group used significantly less efficient strategies than both AS and TD children. No group differences were evident on tests of question understanding, planning or verbal fluency. Potential explanations for differences in verbal problem-solving skill are discussed with reference to the development of inner speech and use of visual strategies in ASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2014 · doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2071-4