8 - Cognitive flexibility in autism: a social-developmental account

Summary

There are important social-developmental contributions to the acquisition of flexible, generative, context-sensitive thinking and engagement with the world. We highlight how among individuals with autism, limitations in the propensity to identify with the attitudes of other people might lead to a paucity of movement across alternative ‘takes’ on the world, and with this, specific forms of cognitive restriction and rigidity.

Introduction

Consider this condensed version of a classic description of a person with autism called L (Scheerer et al. 1945). L was first seen at the age of 11 with a history of severe learning difficulties. He was said never to have shown interest in his social surroundings. Although he had an IQ of only 50 on a standardised test of intelligence, L could recount the day and date of his first visit to a place, and could usually give the names and birthdays of all the people he met there. He could spell forwards and backwards.

L's background history included the fact that in his fourth and fifth years he rarely offered spontaneous observations or reasons for any actions or perceived event. Nor would he imitate an action of others spontaneously. He was unable to understand or create an imaginary situation. He did not play with toys, nor did he show any conception of make-believe games. He was unable to converse in give-and-take language. He barely noticed the presence of other children, and was said to have ‘little emotionality of normal depth and coherence’.