Davis Paige E, Slater Jessica, Marshall David, Robins Diana L
York St John University, UK.
York University, UK.
Autism. 2023 Jan;27(1):244-252. doi: 10.1177/13623613221092195. Epub 2022 May 2.
Research on neurotypical children with imaginary friends has found that those with imaginary friends have better social skills and are more able to think about how other people's minds work compared to children without imaginary friends. Research shows that some autistic children also create imaginary friends. This article is the first to look at whether or not autistic children with imaginary friends have stronger social skills and an improved ability to think about others' minds than those without imaginary friends. We asked parents to report about their children aged 5 to 12. Finding almost half reported their child had an imaginary friend, a much larger number than previous research with younger children. Our findings also suggested that autistic children with imaginary friends were better able to understand others' minds and had stronger social skills than their peers without imaginary friends. The children's language ability did not influence this. The findings of this study add to the evidence that with respect to the creation imaginary friends and their potential benefits, the play profiles of autistic children are similar to the general population. It also provides more evidence that the understanding of others' minds is not all or nothing in autism and gives reason for researchers to investigate whether the causes of these differences are the same or different for autistic children.
对有假想朋友的发育正常儿童的研究发现，与没有假想朋友的儿童相比，有假想朋友的儿童社交技能更好，更能思考他人的思维方式。研究表明，一些自闭症儿童也会创造假想朋友。本文首次探讨了有假想朋友的自闭症儿童是否比没有假想朋友的自闭症儿童具有更强的社交技能和更好的理解他人思维的能力。我们让家长报告他们5至12岁孩子的情况。结果发现，近一半家长报告他们的孩子有一个假想朋友，这一数字比之前针对年幼儿童的研究要大得多。我们的研究结果还表明，有假想朋友的自闭症儿童比没有假想朋友的同龄人更能理解他人的思维，社交技能也更强。儿童的语言能力对此没有影响。这项研究的结果进一步证明，就创造假想朋友及其潜在益处而言，自闭症儿童的玩耍特征与普通人群相似。这也提供了更多证据，表明在自闭症中对他人思维的理解并非全有或全无，并促使研究人员去调查这些差异的原因对自闭症儿童来说是相同还是不同。
