Perspective-taking ability and its relationship to the social behavior of autistic children.
Perspective-taking deficits—not low IQ—drive social skill gaps in autistic children, so target social cognition directly.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Aman et al. (1987) tested autistic children on two things: how well they could take another person's point of view and how well they played with peers.
They also recorded IQ scores and vocabulary size to see if plain smarts predicted social skills.
What they found
Perspective-taking scores lined up with social-skills scores. Kids who could figure out what others thought or felt played better with classmates.
IQ and vocabulary scores did not line up with social skills. Being bright or having big words did not help kids make friends.
How this fits with other research
Peters et al. (2018) later warned that drilling perspective-taking alone is not enough. They said you must teach the real social act—like asking to join a game—at the same time. The 1987 paper showed the link; the 2018 paper told us how to teach it.
Hobson (1984) found no gap on visuospatial perspective tasks. Autistic kids could tell where someone else stood in a room just fine. Aman et al. (1987) shifted the focus to social perspective—guessing feelings or intentions—and found the real deficit. Same skill label, different domain.
Mazza et al. (2017) added a mediation twist: theory-of-mind scores statistically explained social-processing problems. That backs the 1987 claim that social-cognition gaps drive social struggles, not low IQ.
Why it matters
Stop assuming a child who scores high on IQ tests will automatically make friends. Target perspective-taking directly, but do it inside real social routines—greetings, sharing, turn-taking—so the skill transfers to the playground on Monday.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A study was undertaken to assess the relationship between perspective-taking ability and the quality of social behavior in autistic children. Sixteen autistic children ranging from 6 to 14 years of age were administered three types of perspective-taking tasks (perceptual, conceptual, and affective), as well as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Leiter International Performance Scale. Two measures of social behavior were taken: the Vineland Social Maturity Scale and the Social Behavior Rating Scale, designed for the present study. It was found that perspective-taking ability was significantly correlated with both measures of social skills, whereas receptive vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence were not. These results suggest that the social impairments of autistic children may be related to specific deficits in social cognition.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1987 · doi:10.1007/BF01486965