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Judgments of Nonverbal Behaviour by Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder: Can they Detect Signs of Winning and Losing from Brief Video Clips?

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Abstract

Typically developing children are able to judge who is winning or losing from very short clips of video footage of behaviour between active match play across a number of sports. Inferences from “thin slices” (short video clips) allow participants to make complex judgments about the meaning of posture, gesture and body language. This study extends the use of the thin slice research paradigm to children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We tested 38 children with ASD, in two age groups: 15 participants aged 5–8 years and 23 participants aged 9–13 years. We found that the children with ASD had a rate of accuracy similar to that of typically developing peers tested in a previous study.

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Notes

  1. In order to maximize transparency in the conducted research we provide hyperlinks to the stimulus material utilized in the studies. Note that the software randomly selected and displayed the stimulus material from the video stream according to the described procedure and not as shown in the video streams:

    Basketball: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZgJtiKh4w).

    Table tennis: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y3YeYqTnSY).

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank all the children and families who took part in the study. We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers who offered such challenging, thoughtful and supportive feedback. This paper is immeasurably better for their contribution.

Author Contributions

The study was conceived by CR and PF. CR coordinated and drafted the manuscript; PF participated in the design and data analysis. KM participated in the design, literature review and data collection. All authors read and approved of the final manuscript.

Funding

This study was carried out without external funding.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Lee ASD Service, COPE Foundation, Bridgeway, Penrose Wharf, Penrose Quay, Cork, Ireland

    Christian Ryan

  2. Deutschen Sporthochschule Köln, German Sport University Cologne, Am Sportpark Müngersdorf 6, 50933, Cologne, Germany

    Philip Furley

  3. Department of Clinical Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Kathleen Mulhall

Authors
  1. Christian Ryan
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  2. Philip Furley
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  3. Kathleen Mulhall
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Ryan.

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Conflict of interest

All authors declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Ryan, C., Furley, P. & Mulhall, K. Judgments of Nonverbal Behaviour by Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder: Can they Detect Signs of Winning and Losing from Brief Video Clips?. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 2916–2923 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2839-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2839-9

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