Exploring the Influence of Object Similarity and Desirability on Children’s Ownership Identification and Preferences in Autism and Typical Development

Hartley, Calum and Bird, Laura (2023) Exploring the Influence of Object Similarity and Desirability on Children’s Ownership Identification and Preferences in Autism and Typical Development. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53 (6). pp. 2362-2372. ISSN 0162-3257

Text (Accepted_blinded_manuscript)
Accepted_blinded_manuscript.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.
Download (443kB)

Abstract

This study investigated how ownership identification accuracy and object preferences in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are influenced by visual distinctiveness and relative desirability. Unlike typically developing (TD) children matched on receptive language (M age equivalents: 58.8–59.9 months), children with ASD had difficulty identifying another person’s property when object discriminability was low and identifying their own relatively undesirable objects. Children with ASD identified novel objects designated to them with no greater accuracy than objects designated to others, and associating objects with the self did not bias their preferences. We propose that, due to differences in development of the psychological self, ownership does not increase the attentional or preferential salience of objects for children with ASD.