title: Social analogical reasoning in school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing peers.
abstract: Analogical reasoning is an important mechanism for social cognition in typically developing children, and recent evidence suggests that some forms of analogical reasoning may be preserved in autism spectrum disorder. An unanswered question is whether children with autism spectrum disorder can apply analogical reasoning to social information. In all, 92 children with autism spectrum disorder completed a social content analogical reasoning task presented via photographs of real-world social interactions. Autism spectrum disorder participants exhibited performance that was well above chance and was not significantly worse than age- and intelligence quotient-matched typically developing children. Investigating the relationship of social content analogical reasoning performance to age in this cross-sectional dataset indicated similar developmental trajectories in the autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children groups. These findings provide new support for intact analogical reasoning in autism spectrum disorder and have theoretical implications for analogy as a metacognitive skill that may be at least partially dissociable from general deficits in processing social content. As an initial study of social analogical reasoning in children with autism spectrum disorder, this study focused on a basic research question with limited ecological validity. Evidence that children with autism spectrum disorder can apply analogical reasoning ability to social content may have long-range applied implications for exploring how this capacity might be channeled to improve social cognition in daily life.
authors.affiliation: 1 Georgetown University, USA.
authors.forename: Adam E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Green
authors.affiliation: 2 Children's National Medical Center, USA.
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kenworthy
authors.affiliation: 1 Georgetown University, USA.
authors.forename: Natalie M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Gallagher
authors.affiliation: 3 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Ligia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Antezana
authors.affiliation: 3 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Maya G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Mosner
authors.affiliation: 1 Georgetown University, USA.
authors.forename: Samantha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krieg
authors.affiliation: 2 Children's National Medical Center, USA.
authors.forename: Katherina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dudley
authors.affiliation: 2 Children's National Medical Center, USA.
authors.forename: Allison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ratto
authors.affiliation: 3 The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Benjamin E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Yerys
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D032882:Comprehension; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: analogy; autism spectrum disorder; development; social cognition