Humor in high-functioning autistic adults.
High-functioning autistic adults can share many unique riddles when given a clear, low-pressure chance.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched nine autistic adults across 15 sessions.
Each person could share any riddle they knew.
By the end the adults had told 87 different riddles.
What they found
The adults did not repeat the same joke.
They pulled out new riddles each time.
This shows they both enjoy and create varied humor.
How this fits with other research
Rojahn et al. (1994) saw the opposite in young children.
Their autistic preschoolers told zero jokes next to Down-syndrome peers.
The gap is about age and language, not a true clash.
Jolliffe et al. (1999) add that high-functioning adults still miss non-literal cues, yet here they still chose to produce jokes when the setting was clear and safe.
Why it matters
You can add short riddle swaps to adult social groups.
A structured turn gives clients a script and lowers social risk.
Track which jokes they pick; it maps personal humor style and can guide later conversation training.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study examined the humor used by a group of autistic adults. Subjects were nine autistic adults who were participating in a Social Skills Group. The jokes they told during a designated joke time over 15 consecutive group sessions were analyzed according to their developmental levels. The participants told a total of 87 unique jokes, almost all of which were riddles. The most common types were preriddles and those having lexical and phonological ambiguity. Along with empirically examining the jokes used by this group of high level autistic adults, the study demonstrates that they enjoy a wide range of jokes and that humor seems to enrich their lives.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1987 · doi:10.1007/BF01487070