Researchers uncover a distinct narrative pattern in autistic people and their siblings
PsyPost••health
Key Points:
- A study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders found that autistic individuals and their siblings use fewer causal explanations and describe fewer thoughts and feelings of story protagonists when narrating a story from pictures, compared to control participants.
- The research involved 56 autistic individuals, their siblings, parents, and control groups, using a wordless picture book to assess narrative skills and eye-tracking to analyze gaze patterns during storytelling.
- Results showed autistic participants and their siblings omitted more story components and used less causal language, while parents of autistic individuals differed in the types of causal explanations they provided compared to control parents.
- Differences in gaze patterns during narration suggest shared attentional mechanisms among autistic individuals and their families, indicating potential genetic influences on narrative skills in autism
