Alteration of social interactions especially prosocial behaviors – an important aspect of development – is one of the characteristics of autistic disorders. Numerous strategies or therapies are used to improve communication skills or at least to reduce social impairments. Animal-assisted therapies are used widely but their relevant benefits have never been scientifically evaluated. In the present study, we evaluated the association between the presence or the arrival of pets in families with an individual with autism and the changes in his or her prosocial behaviors. Of 260 individuals with autism - on the basis of presence or absence of pets - two groups of 12 individuals and two groups of 8 individuals were assigned to: study 1 (pet arrival after age of 5 versus no pet) and study 2 (pet versus no pet), respectively. Evaluation of social impairment was assessed at two time periods using the 36-items ADI-R algorithm and a parental questionnaire about their child-pet relationships. The results showed that 2 of the 36 items changed positively between the age of 4 to 5 (t0) and time of assessment (t1) in the pet arrival group (study 1): “offering to share” and “offering comfort”. Interestingly, these two items reflect prosocial behaviors. There seemed to be no significant changes in any item for the three other groups. The interactions between individuals with autism and their pets were more – qualitatively and quantitatively - reported in the situation of pet arrival than pet presence since birth. These findings open further lines of research on the impact of pet’s presence or arrival in families with an individual with autism. Given the potential ability of individuals with autism to develop prosocial behaviors, related studies are needed to better understand the mechanisms involved in the development of such child-pet relationship.

Autistic disorders are characterized by deficits in social interactions and communication, strong aversion or non-response to social stimuli. However, these children are often reported to develop strong bonds with companion animals. We hypothesized that children with autism (CAD) would present different behavioural profiles when encountering an unfamiliar animal in a Strange Animal Situation close-to-life test. Twenty seven CAD were compared to 59 children with typical development (CTD). Our results. revealed similarities in the behaviour of both groups of children as well as patterns specific to the CAD (e.g. attracted by humans). Different profiles emerged depending on everyday living conditions. This study constitutes, to our knowledge, the first clear description of how children with autism react when encountering an unfamiliar animal and one of the first direct comparisons between CAD and CTD using a naturalistic but standardized setting.

The aim of this study was to explore the developmental links between conversational perspective‐taking and false belief attribution. To examine this, 81 children aged between 3 and 4 years participated in a longitudinal study over a period of 1 year, with three measurement sessions being performed at 6‐month intervals. The children were assessed by means of sets of tasks involving conversational perspective‐taking, false belief attribution and language. The results show that false belief attribution scores, at a given age, are predicted to a significant extent, irrespective of the sessions compared, by the variations in conversational perspective‐taking scores at an earlier age, whereas the reverse is not observed. These results support the hypothesis that perspective‐taking experience contributes to the development of belief representation during the preschool period.

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