Autistic Kids Don’t Copy Pointless Actions

A new study of children with autism, finds that they miss out actions they deem to be pointless, when copying adults. Rachael Rettner, writes of the study at MyHealthNewsDaily.

While children without an autism diagnosis copied every step of a task that an adult showed them, the autistic children only did the steps they thought were absolutely necessary.

“Autistic children only do the actions they really need to do” says study researcher Antonia Hamilton of the University of Nottingham, UK.

The researchers believe that non-autistic children might copy the unnecessary steps because they have a strong need to fit in or be like others, and this social motivation might be reduced in autistic children. Previous studies have suggested that autistic children will imitate adult behaviors less than typically developing children. The findings of the study were published yesterday in the Current Biology journal.

This news might be, as they say, that the autistic children are not bothered with socially fitting in like the other children are. But I also think this demonstrates the initiative and pragmatic common sense that the autistic children show. I blogged about this previously, and it is why the autistic children are less likely to be hassled by tedious, time consuming actions.

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1 comment on Autistic Kids Don’t Copy Pointless Actions

  1. Vey nice article on the behavior of the autistic children. It is rightly said that the autistic children copy the actions of the adults.
    (Spammy link removed)

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