Brief Report: Intuitive and Reflective Reasoning in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Dual Process Theory has recently been applied to Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to suggest that reasoning by people with ASD and people with higher levels of ASD-like traits can be characterised by reduced intuitive and greater reflective processing. 26 adolescents and adults with ASD and 22 adolescent and adult controls completed an assessment of ASD-like traits, the cognitive reflections test (CRT) to measure intuitive and reflective reasoning and an index of general cognitive ability. The ASD group produced less intuitive responses, and the degree of ASD-like traits showed a negative correlation with intuitive responses and positive correlation with reflective responses on the CRT. Together, these results are consistent with ASD being associated with reduced intuitive reasoning and greater deductive reasoning.

Digitally-Mediated Social Stories Support Children on the Autism Spectrum Adapting to a Change in a ‘Real-World’ Context

“…Supporting the child's understanding of the situation is central to a SS which should 'provide a student with autism an accurate understanding of the situation in which the targeted behaviour occurs' as they may be 'more impaired in their access to accurate social information than their ability to understand and respond appropriately to it' (Gray and Garand 1993: 2). A theoretical understanding of why SS can be effective needs to be developed and one potential is the Dual Process Theory of Autism which proposes that difficulties with rapid, implicit, spontaneous processing can be ameliorated by building upon strengths associated with slower, explicit, prompted processing (Brosnan et al 2016(Brosnan et al , 2017Lewton et al 2019; see also Callenmark et al 2014;Senju 2013; see Happé et al 2017, for review).…”

“…Digital technology has been argued to support a consistent, structured, personalised learning environment enabling repetition, direct feedback and control over the learning experience (Constantin et al 2017;Hanrahan et al 2020;Moore 2008;Odom et al 2003;Ozdemir, 2010;Segers and Verhoeven 2005;Smith et al 2020;Yildirim et al 2001). The extent to which these features support a preference for slower, explicit, prompted processing in autism (see Brosnan et al 2016Brosnan et al , 2017, provides a framework for future research to identify whether digitally-mediated SS interventions are particularly effective for children on the autism spectrum. The SOFA-app has been co-developed with the autistic community with the aim of supporting the fidelity of the intervention.…”

Evaluation of a Transition to University Programme for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…First, students received a lecture that focused on identifying and utilising their strengths [such as persistence, good attention to detail, the ability to systematise, and logical and rule-based thinking, e.g., (Baron-Cohen et al 2009;Brosnan et al 2017] at university, and to help compensate for their weaknesses in planning and organising. This helped the students to feel more empowered, more confident about what they are capable of achieving, and to become more self-aware, which many students found to be very helpful.…”

The Fair Decision-making of Children and Adolescents with High-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder from the Perspective of Dual-process Theories

“…Self-regulation, which is the ability to overcome impulses and control behaviour, can temporarily inhibit the results of intuitive processing to output directly and then reasoning processes will work, and dual-process theories hold that the interaction of cognition and intuitive response can alter the fair decision-making of those with TD (19,23). In addition, some researchers have used cognitive tasks (such as syllogistic reasoning or cognitive reflection tasks, CRT) to study the theory of dual processing in ASD populations and concluded that ASD populations rely more heavily on inference processing than on intuitive processing (24)(25)(26).…”