Identifying symbolic relationships in autism spectrum disorders: a deficit in the identification of temporal co-occurrence?

Bhaumik et al. (2009) asked 24 teens with autism and 24 typical teens to spot hidden links between pictures.

Some links were based on color, shape, or memory. One link could only be seen by noticing which pictures appeared close in time.

The kids looked at pairs on a screen and pressed YES if they saw a rule.

Both groups did fine on color, shape, and memory rules.

Only the ASD teens failed the time rule. They missed that two pictures formed a pair simply because they showed up one right after the other.

Kaufman et al. (2010) later showed the same teens also mis-count longer seconds. Together the papers say timing problems in autism last into adulthood.

Gras-Vincendon et al. (2007) looked like a contradiction at first. Their ASD group judged which picture came last just as well as controls. The key difference: their task used automatic memory, while S et al. forced kids to actively notice timing.

Burrows et al. (2018) and Liu et al. (2021) extend the idea into everyday life. Tiny timing gaps snowball, making it harder for autistic kids to match lip movements with sounds or to sync eye-gaze with a partner.

If your client struggles to see “first-then” links, social rules like “I talk, then you talk” can feel random. Build extra cues: add color borders, use clear start-end signals, and rehearse sequences until the timing feels safe.