A New Look at Performance on Theory-of-Mind Tasks by Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impaired theory-of-mind, affecting false belief understanding.
• Prior research on ASD and false beliefs focused on logical and physical causality, with limited social inferencing.
• This study addresses the gap by examining social and logical inferencing in adolescents with ASD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the performance of preadolescents and adolescents with ASD on false belief tasks.
• To compare performance on social inferencing (psychological states) versus logical inferencing (physical states).
• To assess the impact of a prompt hierarchy on task performance across groups.

Main Methods:

• Administered four logical inferencing tasks and four novel social inferencing tasks.
• Included a prompt hierarchy to evaluate performance improvement.
• Participants: 15 adolescents with ASD, 15 age-matched typically developing (CA) children, and 15 language-age-matched typically developing (LA) children.

Main Results:

• The CA group outperformed both LA and ASD groups on both logical and social inferencing tasks.
• ASD group demonstrated better performance on social inferencing tasks compared to logical inferencing tasks.
• The prompt hierarchy significantly enhanced task performance for ASD and LA groups.

Conclusions:

• Task type, vocabulary differences, and scaffolding (prompt hierarchy) significantly impact false belief task performance in ASD.
• Individuals with ASD may benefit from targeted support in social inferencing.
• Findings highlight the heterogeneity in cognitive profiles within ASD and the importance of tailored assessment.