A potential underlying mechanism associated with the difficulties in social interactions in Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) concerns the abnormal development of moral reasoning. The present study examined utilitarian and deontological judgments in impersonal and personal moral dilemmas, comparing 66 individuals with ASD and 61 typically…

This study of 20 children (ages 6-9) with autism found that the children were able to make a distinction between moral and conventional transgressions in their judgments, and that their level of ability on false belief tasks was not associated with the tendency to distinguish moral and conventional transgressions. (CR)