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Counting Abilities in Autism: Possible Implications for Central Coherence Theory

Counting Abilities in Autism: Possible Implications for Central Coherence Theory We examined the claim that children with autism have a “weak drive for central coherence” which biases them towards processing information at an analytic rather than global level. This was done by investigating whether children with autism would rapidly and automatically enumerate a number of dots presented in a canonical form, or count each dot individually to obtain the total. The time taken to count stimuli was compared across three participant groups: children with autism, children with moderate learning difficulties, and normally developing children. There were 22 children in each group, and individuals were matched across groups on the basis of verbal mental age. Results implied that children with autism did show a tendency towards an analytic level of processing. However, though the groups differed on measures of counting speeds, the number or children showing patterns of global or analytic processing did not differ significantly across the groups. Whether these results implicate a weak drive for central coherence in autism, which is both specific to, and pervasive in the disorder, is discussed. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Springer Journals

Counting Abilities in Autism: Possible Implications for Central Coherence Theory

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References (23)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by Plenum Publishing Corporation
Subject
Psychology; Pediatrics; Clinical Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Neuropsychology
ISSN
0162-3257
eISSN
1573-3432
DOI
10.1023/A:1025817121137
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

We examined the claim that children with autism have a “weak drive for central coherence” which biases them towards processing information at an analytic rather than global level. This was done by investigating whether children with autism would rapidly and automatically enumerate a number of dots presented in a canonical form, or count each dot individually to obtain the total. The time taken to count stimuli was compared across three participant groups: children with autism, children with moderate learning difficulties, and normally developing children. There were 22 children in each group, and individuals were matched across groups on the basis of verbal mental age. Results implied that children with autism did show a tendency towards an analytic level of processing. However, though the groups differed on measures of counting speeds, the number or children showing patterns of global or analytic processing did not differ significantly across the groups. Whether these results implicate a weak drive for central coherence in autism, which is both specific to, and pervasive in the disorder, is discussed.

Journal

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders – Springer Journals

Published: Sep 8, 2004

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