ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the characteristics of deficit in action imitation upon objects for the children with autistic spectrum disorder(ASD). Methods Imitative tasks involved objects under the condition of different time after the modelling action ,different action number, different action meaning were used to examine the variations between 12 young children with ASD,and with deaf children(D) matched with the non-verbal IQ and CA( n= 12) ,and children with mental retardation (MR) matched with verbal IQ and CA( n= 12). Results Analyses of repeated ANOVA revealed that: there were significant main effect on the imitation of action involved objects within three subjects(F(2.33) = 10. 138, P＜0.01 ) ;the individuals with ASD achieved lower scores(0.766 ±0.029 ) than the children with MR (0.861 ± 0. 029 ), and the children with deaf significantly ( 0. 949 ± 0. 029). Especially,the autistic imitation deficit was shown on tasks of deferred and meaningless action imitation. Conclusion Children with ASD show deficit on imitation involved objects significantly.