Role taking ability and social interaction competence in mental retardation and autism

Role taking ability has been examined in many ways including developmental studies with normal subjects and studies which demonstrated role taking deficits in a variety of special populations. Recent data suggest that individuals with autism also show such deficits when compared to nonautistic mentally retarded subjects and normal subjects matched for mental age. These deficits in role taking ability have been proposed as one of the cognitive bases for the social interaction difficulties which are present in all autistic persons.

The purposes of the present study were to demonstrate, for each of three primary dimensions of role taking, the presence of role taking deficits in the autistic, and to determine the extent to which those deficits correlate with measures of social interaction competence. Subjects for the study included a group of autistic children and a matched group of non-autistic mentally retarded children.

Results revealed significant deficits in the autistic group for one of the three role taking dimensions. In addition, that dimension showed significant positive correlations with several of the social interaction measures. Secondary findings suggest the need for a more fine-grained analysis of the nature of social deficits in autism. Implications of these results for the understanding and treatment of the autistic were discussed and future directions for research in the area of autism and social cognition were suggested.