Real-life-type problem-solving in Asperger's syndrome.
Teens with Asperger's need explicit models because they generate far fewer socially appropriate solutions than peers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 24 teens with Asperger's and 24 typical peers to solve everyday social problems. Each teen got short stories like 'Your friend looks sad. What can you do?' They had one minute to list as many helpful, safe ideas as possible.
Two judges scored each answer for social appropriateness. The study looked at how many good ideas each group produced.
What they found
The Asperger group gave half as many socially appropriate answers. Typical teens averaged 4.2 good ideas per story. The Asperger group averaged 2.1.
The gap stayed large even when both groups had similar IQ scores.
How this fits with other research
Hou et al. (2023) found the same social gap in preschoolers. Their eye-tracking study shows young kids with ASD already miss joint intention cues. Together, the two studies trace one steady line: social reasoning problems start early and stay.
Ye et al. (2023) meta-analysis pools 42 studies and labels the issue 'mental time travel' deficits. Their 2023 numbers confirm the 2001 result across ages and tasks.
Downs et al. (2004) seems to disagree. Their high-functioning ASD kids kept up on cooperation tasks. The key difference: Andrew measured if kids could take turns and share. S et al. measured if teens could invent good social moves. Cooperation and invention are different skills, so the papers do not clash.
Why it matters
If you run social-skills groups, do not assume teens can generate their own fixes. Script-fading (Wichnick-Gillis et al. 2019) and digital Social Stories (Camilleri et al. 2024) work because they give the teen the right words and steps. Build these tools into high-school sessions. Start each lesson by modeling two socially appropriate solutions, then let students practice with peers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study compared adolescents with Asperger's syndrome with typically developing adolescents on a novel problem-solving task that presented videotaped scenarios in real-life-type social contexts. The Asperger's group was impaired in several aspects of problem-solving, including recounting the pertinent facts, generating possible high-quality problem solutions, and selecting optimal and preferred solutions. This group's solutions differed most from those of the typically developing group in social appropriateness. The contributions of social experience, social understanding, and executive skills to performance on the novel problem-solving task are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2001 · doi:10.1023/a:1012212824307