Teaching Autistic Children to Solve Complex Tasks

A group of scientists at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, says that teaching autistic children how to “talk things through in their head” could make the young ones more capable of leading an independent lifestyle later on, free from having to be under constant supervision.

The approach could also allow young adults with autism to display a lot more mental flexibility than they do today. The UB team collaborated with colleagues at City University London and the Durham University for this investigation.

Details of how the therapeutic approach works were published in the latest issue of the medical journal Development and Psychopathology. It mostly relies on the fact that a mental process called inner speech is present even in autistic children.

This is what should allow them to talk things through in their heads, in a manner similar to how their healthy peers do. Oftentimes, autistic individuals do not seem able to use inner speech efficiently, or to their advantage.

One of the hallmarks of early childhood autism is communication impairment. UB School of Experimental Psychology professor Chris Jarrold, a coauthor of the new study, says that this largely stems from the fact that autistic children tend not to think in words.

Encouraging inner speech through various intervention strategies could help in this regard, teaching autistic children how to use their inner speech. The same approaches are currently in use for increasing the mental flexibility of children as they grow up

“Most people will 'think in words' when trying to solve problems, which helps with planning or particularly complicated tasks. Young, typically developing children tend to talk out loud to guide themselves when they face challenging tasks,” says Dr. David Williams.

The expert holds an appointment as a lecturer at the Durham Department of Psychology, and was also the lead author of the new study. “However, only from about the age of seven do they talk to themselves in their head and, thus, think in words for problem-solving,” he adds.

“These results show that inner speech has its roots in interpersonal communication with others early in life, and it demonstrates that people who are poor at communicating with others will generally be poor at communicating with themselves,” Dr. Williams concludes.