Exploring the Influence of Object Similarity and Desirability on Children's Ownership Identification and Preferences in Autism and Typical Development.
Calum Hartley, Laura-Ashleigh Bird
PMID 35320433WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism did not prefer objects assigned to them, and identified their own objects less accurately than vocabulary-matched typical children.
Ownership did not increase object appeal for them.
Key findings
01Children with autism identified their own objects less accurately than typical children, but the groups did not differ significantly in identifying the experimenter's objects.
02Children with autism did not prefer objects assigned to them more than random in any trial type.
03Children with autism inferred that the experimenter preferred the experimenter's assigned object in plain-item trials, while typical children did not make this inference in any trial type.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only 20 children were in each group. The autism group was older than the typical group, so age may have influenced some results. The groups were matched on receptive vocabulary but not on chronological age or nonverbal intelligence. Children were not allowed to keep the objects, which may have changed how much they preferred assigned items. The task was a brief table game, not natural interaction with peers or siblings.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these findings as evidence that an ownership-based intervention will improve social behaviour in autism. The study measured how children answered questions about objects and preferences, not whether any treatment changed their behaviour.