Literacy in nonspeaking autistic people.

LAY ABSTRACT: Many autistic people who do not talk cannot tell other people what they know or what they are thinking. As a result, they might not be able to go to the schools they want, share feelings with friends, or get jobs they like. It might be possible to teach them to type on a computer or tablet instead of talking. But first, they would have to know how to spell. Some people do not believe that nonspeaking autistic people can learn to spell. We did a study to see if they can. We tested 31 autistic teenagers and adults who do not talk much or at all. They played a game on an iPad where they had to tap flashing letters. After they played the game, we looked at how fast they tapped the letters. They did three things that people who know how to spell would do. First, they tapped flashing letters faster when the letters spelled out sentences than when the letters made no sense. Second, they tapped letters that usually go together faster than letters that do not usually go together. This shows that they knew some spelling rules. Third, they paused before tapping the first letter of a new word. This shows that they knew where one word ended and the next word began. These results suggest that many autistic people who do not talk can learn how to spell. If they are given appropriate opportunities, they might be able to learn to communicate by typing.

Non-autistic adults can recognize posed autistic facial expressions: Implications for internal representations of emotion.

Autistic people report that their emotional expressions are sometimes misunderstood by non-autistic people. One explanation for these misunderstandings could be that the two neurotypes have different internal representations of emotion: Perhaps they have different expectations about what a facial expression showing a particular emotion looks like. In three well-powered studies with non-autistic college students in the United States (total N = 632), we investigated this possibility. In Study 1, participants recognized most facial expressions posed by autistic individuals more accurately than those posed by non-autistic individuals. Study 2 showed that one reason the autistic expressions were recognized more accurately was because they were better and more intense examples of the intended expressions than the non-autistic expressions. In Study 3, we used a set of expressions created by autistic and non-autistic individuals who could see their faces as they made the expressions, which could allow them to explicitly match the expression they produced with their internal representation of that emotional expression. Here, neither autistic expressions nor non-autistic expressions were consistently recognized more accurately. In short, these findings suggest that differences in internal representations of what emotional expressions look like are unlikely to play a major role in explaining why non-autistic people sometimes misunderstand the emotions autistic people are experiencing.

Young children do not perceive distributional fairness as a moral norm.

Young children robustly distinguish between moral norms and conventional norms (Smetana, 1984; Yucel et al., 2020). In existing research, norms about the fair distribution of resources are by definition considered part of the moral domain; they are not distinguished from other moral norms such as those involving physical harm. Yet an understanding of fairness in resource distribution (hereafter, "fairness") emerges late in development and is culturally variable, raising the possibility that fairness may not fall squarely in the moral domain. In 2 preregistered studies, we examined whether U.S. American children who were primarily White see fairness as a moral or conventional norm. In study 1 (N = 96), we did not obtain the established moral-conventional difference needed to investigate questions about the status of fairness. We improved our design in our second preregistered study. In study 2 (N = 94), 4-year-olds rated moral transgressions (e.g., hitting) as more serious than fairness and conventional transgressions (e.g., wearing pajamas to school), but importantly, they rated fairness and conventional transgressions as similarly serious. In contrast, 6- and 8-year-olds rated moral transgressions as more serious than fairness and conventional transgressions, and fairness as more serious than conventional transgressions. An additional, forced-choice procedure revealed that most 6-year-olds also categorized fairness with moral rather than conventional transgressions; 4- and 8-year-olds' responses on this measure did not show systematic patterns. U.S. American children may not equate norms of fairness in resource distribution with harm-based moral norms, even into middle childhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

I remember being nice: self-enhancement memory bias in middle childhood.

Adults tend to remember themselves in a positive way. For example, they are more likely to remember their past good deeds rather than their past bad deeds. We investigated whether children (N = 40) are also biased in how they remember information related to themselves. Using the self-reference memory paradigm, we found that 8- to 10-year-olds' source memory for mean action phrases (e.g., "Lie to someone") was worse when the phrases were encoded with reference to themselves compared to when they were encoded with reference to others. Source memory for self-referenced mean phrases was also worse than source memory for self-referenced nice action phrases (e.g., "Be kind to someone") and self-referenced neutral action phrases (e.g., "Draw a circle"). These results provide some of the first experimental evidence for self-enhancement in children's memory.

Brief Report: Social Behavior and Special Interests in the Stigmatization of Autistic College Students.

Autistic people, by definition, differ in social behavior from non-autistic individuals. One characteristic common to many autistic people is a special interest in a particular topic-something spoken about with such frequency and intensity that it may be stigmatized by non-autistic peers. We investigated college students' interest in interacting with peers described as behaving in ways characteristic of autism (or not), and additionally described as having a special interest (or not). As expected, autistic characters were more stigmatized, but autistic characters with a special interest were not more stigmatized than those without. Only among non-autistic characters was having a special interest associated with greater stigmatization. Findings give further insight into factors influencing the stigmatization of autistic college students.

Experiencing social connection: A qualitative study of mothers of nonspeaking autistic children.

Autistic children do not consistently show conventional signs of social engagement, which some have interpreted to mean that they are not interested in connecting with other people. If someone does not act like they are interested in connecting with you, it may make it difficult to feel connected to them. And yet, some parents report feeling strongly connected to their autistic children. We conducted phenomenological interviews with 13 mothers to understand how they experienced connection with their 5- to 14-year-old nonspeaking autistic children. Mothers of nonspeaking autistic children represent a unique group in which to study connection because their children both may not seem interested in connecting with them and have limited ability to communicate effectively using speech, a common way people connect with each other. The mothers in this study interpreted a range of child behaviors-some unconventional, but many conventional-as signs that their children were interested in connecting with them, (re)framed child behaviors that could undermine connection as caused by factors unrelated to the relationship, and expressed several convictions that may help build and sustain connection in the face of uncertainty about the meaning of their children's behavior. Even though their autistic children may not consistently act in conventional socially oriented ways, these mothers reported perceiving their children's behavior as embedded within an emotionally reciprocal relationship.

Eye-tracking reveals agency in assisted autistic communication.

About one-third of autistic people have limited ability to use speech. Some have learned to communicate by pointing to letters of the alphabet. But this method is controversial because it requires the assistance of another person-someone who holds a letterboard in front of users and so could theoretically cue them to point to particular letters. Indeed, some scientists have dismissed the possibility that any nonspeaking autistic person who communicates with assistance could be conveying their own thoughts. In the study reported here, we used head-mounted eye-tracking to investigate communicative agency in a sample of nine nonspeaking autistic letterboard users. We measured the speed and accuracy with which they looked at and pointed to letters as they responded to novel questions. Participants pointed to about one letter per second, rarely made spelling errors, and visually fixated most letters about half a second before pointing to them. Additionally, their response times reflected planning and production processes characteristic of fluent spelling in non-autistic typists. These findings render a cueing account of participants' performance unlikely: The speed, accuracy, timing, and visual fixation patterns suggest that participants pointed to letters they selected themselves, not letters they were directed to by the assistant. The blanket dismissal of assisted autistic communication is therefore unwarranted.

How Closely Related Are Parent and Child Reports of Child Alexithymia?

Alexithymia is a subclinical trait involving difficulty describing and identifying emotions. It is common in a number of psychiatric conditions. Alexithymia in children is sometimes measured by parent report and sometimes by child self-report, but it is not yet known how closely related the two measures are. This is an important question both theoretically and practically, in terms of research design and clinical practice. We conducted a preliminary study to investigate this question in a sample of 6- to 11-year-old neurotypical children and their parents (N = 29 dyads). Parent and child reports were not correlated, and 93% of parents under-estimated their child's level of alexithymia relative to the child's self-report. Based on these results, we hypothesize that when asked to report on the child's alexithymia, children and parents may not be reporting on the same phenomenon, and thus these two measures may not be interchangeable. These provocative findings, however, must be considered preliminary: our analyses were sufficiently powered to detect a strong relation between the two types of report had one existed, but our analyses were not sufficiently powered to distinguish between a small relation and no relation at all.

Being versus appearing socially uninterested: Challenging assumptions about social motivation in autism.

Progress in psychological science can be limited by a number of factors, not least of which are the starting assumptions of scientists themselves. We believe that some influential accounts of autism rest on a questionable assumption that many of its behavioral characteristics indicate a lack of social interest - an assumption that is flatly contradicted by the testimony of many autistic people themselves. In this article, we challenge this assumption by describing alternative explanations for four such behaviors: (a) low levels of eye contact, (b) infrequent pointing, (c) motor stereotypies, and (d) echolalia. The assumption that autistic people's unusual behaviors indicate diminished social motivation has had profound and often negative effects on the ways they are studied and treated. We argue that understanding and supporting autistic individuals will require interrogating this assumption, taking autistic testimony seriously, considering alternative explanations for unusual behaviors, and investigating unconventional - even idiosyncratic - ways in which autistic individuals may express their social interest. These steps are crucial, we believe, for creating a more accurate, humane, and useful science of autism.

Visualization instructions enhance preschoolers' spatial problem-solving.

This study explores whether verbal instructions to visualize an event can improve children's ability to make predictions about a difficult spatial problem. Three-year-olds (N = 48) were introduced to two intertwined tubes, and prior to predicting how a ball would travel through a given tube, one group of children was told to imagine the ball rolling down the tube, one group was told an explicit rule about where the ball would land, and a third group was given no instructions. Children were prevented from interacting with the apparatus to investigate the effect of the different verbal instructions alone on their problem-solving. Children in the imagine condition made more correct predictions than both children who received no instructions and those who were told an explicit rule (but were not told to visualize). These results suggest that verbal instructions to imagine an event are enough to help children solve difficult spatial problems, likely by visualizing the outcome prior to making a prediction. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Preschoolers exhibit a gravity bias when predicting how objects will travel through several intertwined tubes (Hood, 1995, Cogn. Dev., 10, 577). Preschoolers can overcome this gravity bias when they are first told to look at (Bascandziev & Harris, , Cogn. Dev., 25, 233) or visualize (Joh et al., 2011, Child Dev., 82, 744) the tubes. This work emphasized the role of visualization in improving children's ability to solve this difficult spatial problem. What does this study add? Previous work typically allowed children to interact directly with the apparatus during familiarization or while making predictions. Previous work did not consider whether a synergy between physical interaction and visualization instructions improved predictions. The current study shows that visualization instructions alone can improve children's ability to overcome the gravity bias.

Cognitive Foundations of Learning from Testimony.

Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they age, children's reasoning about testimony increasingly reflects an ability not just to detect imperfect or inaccurate claims but also to assess what inferences may or may not be drawn about informants given their particular situation. Children also attend to the broader characteristics of particular informants-their group membership, personality characteristics, and agreement or disagreement with other potential informants. When presented with unexpected or counterintuitive testimony, children are prone to set aside their own prior convictions, but they may sometimes defer to informants for inherently social reasons.

Success inhibits preschoolers' ability to establish selective trust.

A number of studies have shown that preschoolers make inferences about potential informants based on the informants' past behavior, selectively trusting an informant who has been helpful in the past, for example, over one who has been unhelpful. Here we used a hiding game to show that 4- and 5-year-olds' selective trust can also be influenced by inferences they make about their own abilities. Children do not prefer a previously helpful informant over a previously unhelpful one when informant helpfulness is decoupled from children's success in finding hidden objects (Studies 1 and 3). Indeed, children do not seem to track informant helpfulness when their success at finding hidden objects has never depended on it (Study 2). A single failure to find a hidden object when offered information by the unhelpful informant can, however, lead them to selectively trust the previously helpful one later (Study 4). Children's selective trust is based not only on differences between informants but also on their sense of illusory control-their inferences about whether they need assistance from those informants in the first place.

Cultural variations in global versus local processing: a developmental perspective.

We conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global versus local processing and their developmental trajectories. In Study 1 (N = 363), we found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentine participants. We replicated this effect in Study 2 (N = 1,843) using a nationally representative sample of Japanese and American adults ages 20 to 69, and found further that adults in both cultures became more globally oriented with age. In Study 3 (N = 133), we investigated the developmental course of the cultural difference using Japanese and American children, and found it was evident by 4 years of age. Cultural variations in global versus local processing emerge by early childhood, and remain throughout adulthood. At the same time, both Japanese and Americans become increasingly global processors with age.

Can't stop believing: inhibitory control and resistance to misleading testimony.

Why are some young children consistently willing to believe what they are told even when it conflicts with first-hand experience? In this study, we investigated the possibility that this deference reflects an inability to inhibit a prepotent response. Over the course of several trials, 2.5- to 3.5-year-olds (N = 58) heard an adult contradict their report of a simple event they had both witnessed, and children were asked to resolve this discrepancy. Those who repeatedly deferred to the adult's misleading testimony had more difficulty on an inhibitory control task involving spatial conflict than those who responded more skeptically. These results suggest that responding skeptically to testimony that conflicts with first-hand experience may be challenging for some young children because it requires inhibiting a normally appropriate bias to believe testimony.

The power of print: children's trust in unexpected printed suggestions.

How do children evaluate the veracity of printed text? We examined children's handling of unexpected suggestions conveyed via print versus orally. In Experiment 1 (N=131), 3- to 6-year-olds witnessed a speaker either read aloud an unexpected but not completely implausible printed label (e.g., fish for a bird-like animal with some fish features) or speak the label without accompanying text. Pre-readers accepted labels in both conditions. Early readers often rejected spoken labels yet accepted them in the print condition, and in Experiment 2 (N=55) 3- to 6-year-olds continued to apply them even after the print was obscured. Early readers accept printed testimony that they reject if only spoken, and the influence of text endures even when it is no longer visible.

Deficit or difference? Interpreting diverse developmental paths: an introduction to the special section.

How should differences between "typically developing" children and other populations be interpreted? To what extent should the emphasis be on advocating remediation for children who are on a developmental trajectory that differs from the norm versus embracing different developmental trajectories as equally valid contributions to the diversity of human experience? The 6 target articles and 2 commentaries in this special section offer a diverse set of perspectives on the tensions and responsibilities inherent in interpreting and acting on differences between children of different cultural, ethnic, linguistic, socioeconomic, and neurological backgrounds.

Pointing Disrupts Preschoolers' Ability to Discriminate Between Knowledgeable and Ignorant Informants.

By 4 years of age, children have been reinforced repeatedly for searching where they see someone point. In two studies, we asked whether this history of reinforcement could interfere with young children's ability to discriminate between a knowledgeable and an ignorant informant. Children watched as one informant hid a sticker while another turned around, and then both informants indicated where they though the sticker was, either by pointing or by using a less practiced means of reference. Children failed to discriminate between the two informants when they pointed, but they chose the location indicated by the knowledgeable informant when the informants used a cue other than pointing. Pointing can disrupt as basic an understanding as the link between seeing and knowing.

Characterizing children's expectations about expertise and incompetence: halo or pitchfork effects?

Do children expect an expert in one domain to also be an expert in an unrelated domain? In Study 1, 32 three- and four-year-olds learned that one informant was an expert about dogs relative to another informant. When presented with pictures of new dogs or of artifacts, children who could remember which informant was the dog expert preferred her over the novice as an informant about the names of dogs, but they had no preference when the informants presented artifact labels. In Study 2, 32 children learned that one informant was incompetent about dogs whereas another was neutral. In this case, children preferred the neutral speaker over the incompetent one about both dogs and artifacts. Taken together, these results suggest that for children, expertise is not subject to a "halo effect," but incompetence may be subject to a "pitchfork effect."