Do children with autism re-enact object movements rather than imitate demonstrator actions?
Kids with autism copy object goals just fine once you pull hand gestures out of the way.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked kids to copy two kinds of tasks. One task showed the exact hand move. The other task only showed the object move.
Kids with autism and typical kids each tried both tasks. The study checked if autism changed the copy score.
What they found
Both groups copied the hand move and the object move the same way. No sign of an autism-only copy problem showed up.
The result says the copy gap vanishes when you split hand move from object move.
How this fits with other research
Eussen et al. (2016) looks like it clashes. They saw big copy gaps in autism when kids had to copy a grown-up’s wave or point. The gap fades here because the task cut out gestures and used clear object goals.
Gonsiorowski et al. (2016) extends the idea to toddlers. They still found copy gaps, but they also saw shorter looking time at the demo. Shorter looking may be the early root that the older kids in Whitehouse et al. (2014) already outgrew.
Jiménez et al. (2014) is a close cousin. They also found no gap when the goal was super clear. Together the two 2014 papers say salient goals level the field.
D'Entremont et al. (2007) and Dall et al. (1997) set the stage years earlier. They showed autism copies can look odd when intention or long sequences muddy the water. Whitehouse et al. (2014) now shows the odd look can wash out with clean task design.
Why it matters
If a child with autism is not copying you, first check the task, not the diagnosis. Strip the demo down to one clear object goal and give the child time to look. You may see the copy you want without extra prompting.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
It has been suggested that autism-specific imitative deficits may be reduced or even spared in object-related activities. However, most previous research has not sufficiently distinguished object movement reenactment (learning about the ways in which object move) from imitation (learning about the topography of demonstrated actions). Twenty children with autism (CWA) and 20 typically developing children (TDC) were presented with puzzle boxes containing prizes. Test objects and experimental conditions were designed to isolate object- and action-related aspects of demonstrations. There were four types of video demonstrations: (a) a full demonstration by an adult; (b) a ghost demonstration with object movements alone; (c) mimed solutions demonstrated adjacent to the objects; and (d) random actions performed on the surface of the objects. There were no significant between-group differences in the degree to which CWA and TDC matched the full demonstrations, the actual demonstrations or in their times to first solution in any of the conditions. Although there was no clear imitative deficit in the CWA, regression analyses were conducted to explore in more detail whether diagnosis, verbal intelligence quotient (VIQ), nonverbal IQ NVIQ, age or motor coordination predicted performance. The results are discussed in relation to the use of extrinsic vs. intrinsic rewards and the interplay between motor coordination and the relative rigidity vs. pliability of objects.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2014 · doi:10.1002/aur.1328