Social Functioning in Autistic Children with Below-Average vs. Average IQ: Limited Behavioral and Neural Evidence of Group Differences.

The study compared groups at one baseline time point, so it cannot show that lower IQ caused any difference. Participants were recruited from clinical trials of a theatre-based intervention, and only baseline data were used, so the sample may not represent all autistic children. The sample had 23 females and 59 males, which may limit how well sex differences were detected. The authors did not account for socioeconomic status or race/ethnicity because of sample size and number of variables. Some brain-response differences were small, and several did not remain significant after correction for multiple comparisons. The paper reported the average N170 latency difference as approximately 8 ms, and said its practical significance is unclear. The study used a common set of behavioral and EEG measures; results may not apply to other tasks or age groups.

Blythe Corbett is the founder of SENSE Theatre but does not receive financial compensation. Other authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Do not assume a lower IQ automatically means worse everyday social functioning in autistic children. Caregiver reports did not differ between IQ groups, and direct task differences may reflect the cognitive and language demands of the tests.