Listening in your shoes: social perspective-taking and verbal reference interpretation by children with autism

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often do not tailor language for

specific listeners, i.e. they fail to use social perspective. Only one previous study

examined whether individuals with ASD use social perspective to interpret

referring terms (e.g. 'the stripy ball'). Malkin et al. (2017) found that 5- to 7-yearolds

with ASD did not differ from well-matched typically-developing (TD) children

in correctly interpreting a referring term in relation to the activity they had shared

with the specific speaker. In the current study, we manipulated a different aspect

of social common ground. We told each child (C) that one experimenter (E2) had

bought toys which the Requesting Experimenter (RE) had not yet seen. For each

trial, E2 passed one of these (e.g. pink ball) over to RE, who discussed this with C.

Then RE left and E2 showed C another object of the same type (e.g. yellow ball).

When RE returned, she and C could see both objects. RE said 'Oh wow, I like that

ball. Can you put that ball in my box?'. We tested 24 eight- to eleven-year-olds

with ASD. They were significantly less likely than 24 well-matched TD controls to

select the object that was new for RE (p <.05) and significantly more likely to ask

clarification questions such as, 'which ball?' (p < .01). The groups did not differ for

either of these DVs in visual perspective-taking controls. Individuals with ASD have

difficulty understanding that people tend to comment on things which are new for

them.