Exploring the Influence of Autism on Children's Ownership Identification and Object Preferences

• In Event: Varieties of Value: Factors Influencing Children's Differing Forms of Regard for Objects

Abstract

Introduction
Typically developing (TD) children are adept at tracking their possessions even when they are identical to, or less desirable than, objects owned by others. Moreover, brief associations with the self are sufficient to bias their object preferences. Conversely, recent evidence suggests that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can accurately identify ownership when objects are perceptually distinct and equally desirable, but their object preferences are not influenced by ownership history. Here, we investigate how the relative similarity and desirability of objects influences ownership tracking and item preferences in children with ASD.

Hypotheses
Due to their potentially reduced sensitivity to ownership history, we predicted that children with ASD may be less accurate than TD children at tracking ownership when objects are visually similar or differ in terms of desirability. We also expected that ASD would supress preferences for self-owned objects.

Study Population
Participants were 20 children with ASD (M age: 7.73 years) and 20 TD children (M age: 4.70 years) matched on language comprehension (ASD M: 4.90 years; TD M: 4.99 years).

Methods
Children completed 12 trials divided evenly across three conditions. Children were presented with three objects per trial; one object was assigned to them and another was assigned to the experimenter. In the ‘Identical’ condition, all three objects were visually and functionally identical. In the ‘Participant Plain’ condition, the child's object was relatively undesirable in comparison to the other objects. In the ‘Varied’ condition, all three objects were perceptually distinct and equally interesting. Children were asked to match objects to their corresponding owners and identify which object they liked the most.

Results
Descriptive statistics are displayed in Figure 1. Children with ASD were significantly less accurate at identifying their objects than TD children, but did not differ when identifying the experimenter’s objects. Across populations, children were significantly less likely to identify their objects in the Participant Plain condition than the Varied Condition, indicating possible conflation between desire and ownership. Children were also significantly less likely to identify the experimenter's objects in the Identical condition than the Varied and Participant Plain conditions, where tracking of other-object relationships was facilitated by the perceptual distinctiveness of stimuli.

While TD children exhibited above-chance preference for their object in the Identical condition, children with ASD did not reliably prefer their object in any condition (preference rates were similar irrespective of object similarity/desirability). TD children were significantly more likely to prefer their assigned item in the Varied and Identical conditions than the Participant Plain condition.

These results are the first to show that children with ASD may be less accurate than TD children at identifying self-owned objects (irrespective of perceptual similarity or desirability). They also corroborate claims that ownership does not bias children with ASD to prefer self-owned items. We propose that, unlike for TD children, association with the self does not increase the psychological salience of objects in ASD. Overall, this study provides further support for the theory that ASD reduces children's concern for ownership history.

Authors

• Calum Hartley, Lancaster University
  Presenting Author

• Laura-Ashleigh Bird, Durham University
  Non-Presenting Author