Abstract
Social communication difficulties are a diagnostic feature in autism. These difficulties are sometimes attributed, at least in part, to impaired ability in making inferences about what other people mean. In this registered report, we test a competing hypothesis that the communication profile of adults on the autism spectrum can be more strongly characterised by reduced confidence in making inferences in the face of uncertain information. We will test this hypothesis by comparing the performance of 100 autistic and 100 non-autistic adults on a test of implied meaning, using a test of grammaticality judgements as a control task. We hypothesise that autistic adults will report substantially lower confidence, allowing for differences in accuracy, than non-autistic adults on the test of implied meaning compared to the grammaticality test. In addition, we hypothesise that reduced confidence in drawing inferences will relate to the cognitive trait Intolerance of Uncertainty and self-reported social communication challenges. Finally, we will conduct exploratory analysis to assess the specificity of the communication profile of the autistic adults by comparing their performance to that of dyslexic adults, who might also be expected to experience challenges with language and communication.
Highlights
Persistent challenges with social communication are a defining feature for the diagnosis of autism (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
An alternative suggestion is that social communication difficulties are less the result of an impairment in pragmatics, but more impacted by cognitive preferences that differ between autistic and non-autistic people
We present the Grammaticality Decision Test as a control task with a similar response format to the pragmatic task to test the specificity of any differences
Summary
Persistent challenges with social communication are a defining feature for the diagnosis of autism (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In an alternative version of the test without a ‘don’t know’ response, autistic individuals showed high accuracy for items for which they had selected ‘don’t know’ first time round This marked tendency to select ‘don’t know’ when given a chance, but to process the inference as intended when constrained by the task, suggested reduced confidence in the face of uncertain information and a preference for explicit communication. This could be due to possible difficulties around metacognition in autistic people, who may experience a mismatch between performance and confidence in their performance due to differences in self-monitoring. The number of less confident responses (maybe responses) on the pragmatic language task, the score on the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale, and self-reported social communication difficulties will significantly intercorrelate across the full sample
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
