Social motivation and implicit theory of mind in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Kimberly Burnside, Kristyn Wright, Diane Poulin-Dubois
PMID 28762662WHAT IT FOUND
Looking at social stimuli did not match false-belief performance in either group.
Children with autism showed no social looking preference, while typical children did, but the groups did not differ.
Key findings
01Social motivation scores were not related to implicit false-belief performance in either group.
02The autism and typically developing groups did not differ on the social motivation tasks.
03The group difference on the implicit false-belief task was a trend, not statistically significant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small: 16 children with autism and 16 typically developing children, and only 15 children with autism were analysed on the visual tasks. The authors said the analyses may have been underpowered to detect a less robust effect. The stimuli were not interactive and may not have been ecologically valid enough to show group differences. The implicit false-belief task has had variable success in young children and may not be robust in childhood. The authors suggested that the pass/fail false-belief score may have had limited variability.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that reduced social motivation explains false-belief performance in autism. The study found no relation between social looking and false-belief performance, and the group differences were not clear.