Constructing fictional stories: a study of story narratives by children with autistic spectrum disorder.
High-functioning students with autism tell shorter, simpler made-up stories even when their language scores match peers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
King et al. (2014) asked high-functioning kids with autism to make up a story. Each child looked at a picture book with no words and told the story out loud.
The researchers then compared these stories to ones told by kids of the same age and language level who were not autistic.
What they found
The autistic children’s stories were shorter and simpler. They used fewer words like ‘because’ or ‘so’ to link events.
Even though all the kids had similar vocabulary scores, the autistic group struggled to build a made-up plot.
How this fits with other research
Greco et al. (2023) repeated the same task and got the same result. They added that autistic kids who had trouble stopping themselves made more repeated self-fixes while talking.
Colle et al. (2008) saw the same pattern in adults. Their stories had fewer pronouns and time words, showing the issue lasts into adulthood.
Amore et al. (2011) found that adults with autism wrote shorter stories when they scored low on theory-of-mind tests. This hints that understanding minds feeds into both speaking and writing fiction.
Why it matters
If you run social-skills or language lessons, do not assume that good vocabulary equals good storytelling. Build in simple scaffolds: picture sequences, ‘why’ cards, or sentence starters like ‘Suddenly…’. Practice linking events with ‘because’ and ‘so’ before asking for a free story. These small supports can turn a frustrating task into a clear teaching target.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are reported to have difficulties with narrative language but little is known about how this affects their production of fictional stories. In this study, we aimed to establish whether fictional narratives of children with ASD differed from those of typically developing children and if performance was commensurate with levels of oral language. Fictional stories produced by 27 high functioning children with ASD, aged 11-14 yrs, were compared with those of language and age matched groups of typically developing children. Differences were found between the children with ASD and comparison groups in structural, evaluative and global features of their stories indicating specific difficulties with this form of narrative. Stories of the ASD group were shorter and contained fewer causal statements than those of both comparison groups and sentences were less grammatically complex than those of the age match but not the language match group. In global measures, the stories of the ASD group were impoverished relative to both comparison groups. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive theories of autism and language development.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.06.015