Young children with autism spectrum disorders imitate in the context of others' prior intention.
Preschoolers with autism do not use your goal to shape what they copy—say the goal first, then show the move.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Huang et al. (2017) watched preschoolers with autism, kids with other delays, and typical kids.
Each child saw an adult try to turn on a light with a failed hand action.
Next the adult showed a new action that worked. The question: would the child copy the useful move more if they first saw the adult’s goal?
What they found
Typical kids and kids with general delays copied the winning move more often when they knew the adult’s goal.
Kids with autism copied the move the same amount, goal or no goal.
Knowing the adult’s prior intention did not boost their imitation at all.
How this fits with other research
Pillai et al. (2014) ran a different task but saw the same blank spot. Their ASD teens watched short clips and had to guess what event had just upset the actor. They scored low, showing the same failure to read prior mental states.
Loukusa et al. (2007) looked at younger and older AS/HFA kids answering context-based language questions. Younger kids missed the cues, older kids did better but still could not explain how they knew. Together these papers draw one line: using context to read minds is weak in ASD and improves slowly.
Wagels et al. (2020) seems to clash at first. They found ASD kids reacted like peers when teased by a person, but over-reacted when a machine provoked them. Social context did guide their behavior here. The difference is task type: reading a goal before action (Chi-Tai) versus reacting to clear social cues (Lisa). Social reaction can stay intact while forward-looking intention use stays poor.
Why it matters
When you model a new skill, do not assume the child with autism sees your goal. State the goal out loud and point to it. Break the intention into a mini-lesson before you demo. This front-load can replace the missing mental boost that typical kids get for free.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Many studies have shown that children with autism spectrum disorder have some understanding of intentions behind others' goal-directed actions on objects. It is not clear whether they understand intentions at a high level of abstraction reliant on the context in which the actions occur. This study tested their understanding of others' prior intentions with typically developing and developmentally delayed children. We replicated Carpenter et al.'s test of the ability to understand prior intentions embedded in the social situation with an additional context of no prior intention. Results showed that when the experimenter's intention was made known before the demonstration, children without autism spectrum disorder performed not only better than the autism spectrum disorder children but also better than themselves when there was no information about prior intention. No between-condition difference was found in the autism spectrum disorder group. It thus appears that children with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty decoupling intentions from the context of the situation. The present findings, together with previous evidence for the intactness of the ability to understand and to imitate goal-directed actions, suggest that asymmetrical imitation performance occurs at different levels of understanding of intention by children with autism spectrum disorder.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2017 · doi:10.1177/1362361315627135