UC Davis

This study examined whether school-aged autistic children without co-occurring intellectual disabilities (autistic_WoID) show similar difficulty on Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks as young autistic_WoID children and if these difficulties are related to problems in domain-general aspects of cognition. Eighty-one autistic_WoID and 44 neurotypical (NT) children between the ages of 8-16 years participated in this study and were matched on verbal IQ. ToM performance significantly and independently differentiated many, but not all, autistic_WoID and NT participants above and beyond the effects of working memory and inferential thinking. However, these cognitive variables did not fully explain difficulties with social cognition in autistic_WoID children. These findings have implications for understanding autism, the factors that may impact intervention for social cognition in autism, and the factors that impact the education of autistic children who may struggle in general education classrooms.