Do Social Attribution Skills Improve with Age in Children with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders?

Bal et al. (2013) asked if social attribution skills grow with age in high-functioning kids with autism. They compared kids with ASD to same-age peers without ASD. The team used a picture story task where kids explain why cartoon shapes move. They tested children aged 8 to 18 and tracked how answers changed with age.

The gap in social attribution got wider as kids got older. Typical kids gave richer social reasons for the shapes’ actions each year. Kids with ASD gave fewer social reasons and the gap never closed. Age alone did not fix the skill.

Wallace et al. (2008) seems to disagree. They found that older kids with autism caught up to peers on reading eye direction. The key difference is the skill tested: eye gaze is quick and visual, while attribution needs deeper social thinking. Catching up on one does not mean catching up on the other.

Eisenhower et al. (2006) and Chen et al. (2001) saw the same widening pattern earlier. They showed that social-perception problems stay large in Asperger syndrome and link to anxiety. Elgiz et al. extend those snapshots into a clear age trend.

Ziv et al. (2014) looked even younger and found big social-information gaps in preschool. Put together, the data draw a line: early deficits stay and keep growing through high school.

Do not wait for tweens or teens to “grow out of” social attribution errors. The skill keeps falling behind, so teach it early and keep teaching it. Add brief attribution drills to social skills groups: show short animations, ask “why did the triangle help?” and shape social answers. Track progress with both kid and parent reports; Lerner et al. (2012) and Johnson et al. (2009) show youth often rate themselves higher than parents do. Pair direct instruction with real-life practice to narrow the gap before it widens further.