Children with autism are impaired in the understanding of teaching

Abstract

Children learn novel information using various methods, and one of the most common is human pedagogical communication or teaching - the purposeful imparting of information from one person to another. Neuro-typically developing (TD) children gain the ability to recognize and understand teaching as a core method for acquiring knowledge from others. However, it is not known when children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) acquire the ability to recognize and understand teaching. This study (total N = 70) examined whether children with ASD recognize the two central elements that define teaching: (1) that teaching is an intentional activity; and (2) that teaching requires a knowledge difference between teacher and learner. Theory of mind understanding was also tested. Compared to individually matched TD children, high cognitively functioning children with ASD were impaired in their comprehension of both components of teaching understanding, and their performance was correlated with theory of mind understanding. These findings could have broad implications for explaining learning in children with autism, and could help in designing more effective interventions, which could ultimately lead to improved learning outcomes for everyday life skills, school performance, health, and overall well-being.

Gestures in Storytelling by Preschool Chinese-Speaking Children With and Without Autism

“…However, children with ASD may not realize that emblems could be produced and understood in a supplementary way. One possible explanation is that while children with ASD could learn some gestural skills from daily life as their TD peers (Wise and Sevcik, 2012), they are more likely to learn the gestures that are produced in a reinforcing way, in which the connection between the gesture and its corresponding meaning is explicit and clear (Knutsen et al, 2017). Therefore, they may have difficulty in learning emblems, which are more likely to be produced to supplement speech in daily life compared to other types of gestures (McNeill, 1992).…”