Children with autism spectrum disorder have an exceptional explanatory drive Journal Articles

abstract

• An “explanatory drive” motivates children to explain ambiguity. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders are interested in how systems work, but it is unknown whether they have an explanatory drive. We presented children with and without autism spectrum disorder unsolvable problems in a physical and in a social context and evaluated problem-solving and explanation-seeking responses. In the physical context (but not the social context), the children with autism spectrum disorder showed a stronger explanatory drive than controls. Importantly, the number of explanatory behaviors made by children with autism spectrum disorder in the social context was independent of social and communicative impairments. Children with autism spectrum disorder did not show an exceptional explanatory drive in the social domain. These results suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder have an explanatory drive and that the explanatory drive may be domain specific.

authors

• Rutherford, Mel
• Subiaul, Francys

status

• published 

publication date

• August 2016

has subject area

• 1303 Specialist Studies in Education (FoR)
• 1701 Psychology (FoR)
• 1702 Cognitive Sciences (FoR)
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (MeSH)
• Child (MeSH)
• Developmental & Child Psychology (Science Metrix)
• Drive (MeSH)
• Female (MeSH)
• Humans (MeSH)
• Male (MeSH)
• Problem Solving (MeSH)
• Social Behavior (MeSH)

published in

• Autism  Journal

keywords

• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Child
• Drive
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Problem Solving
• Social Behavior
• explanatory drive
• social cognition
• systemizing

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1177/1362361315605973

PubMed ID

• 26503988

start page

• 744

end page

• 753

volume

• 20

issue

• 6