ERIC Number: EJ1465930
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Apr
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1362-3613
EISSN: EISSN-1461-7005
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Seeing It in Others versus Doing It Yourself: Social Desirability Judgements and Conversation Production Data from Autistic and Non-Autistic Children
Lauren McGuinness1; Kirsten Abbot-Smith1; Chiara Gambi2
Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice, v29 n4 p975-987 2025
On average, groups of autistic individuals are more likely than groups of non-autistic individuals to exhibit unconventional conversational behaviours. We examined autistic and non-autistic children's social impressions of unconventional responding, as well as actual conversational behaviours in the same participants. Across two studies, 36 autistic and 36 non-autistic matched 9-13-year-olds listened to conversational vignettes which manipulated the relevance and timing of responses produced by the speaker. They then rated the speaker's social desirability. We also measured the content and latency of the same children's conversational responses. Autistic children aligned with their non-autistic peers in indicating that they were less likely to befriend, or enjoy interacting with, a speaker who provided off-topic or delayed responses. However, the same autistic children provided more off-topic, and fewer topic-continuing, conversational responses than their non-autistic counterparts. These findings suggest that displaying unconventional conversational behaviours may act as a barrier to friendship or inclusion for autistic children, even when socialising with other autistic peers.
Descriptors: Elementary School Students, Middle School Students, Foreign Countries, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Interpersonal Competence, Communication Problems, Communication Skills, Interpersonal Communication, Speech Communication, Friendship, Reaction Time, Social Differences, Individual Differences, Social Desirability, Social Behavior, Disability Discrimination, Peer Relationship, Comparative Testing
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Junior High Schools; Middle Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (England)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1University of Kent, UK; 2University of Warwick, UK