Bronwyn Morgan
Murray Maybery
Kevin Durkin
University of Western Australia

This article has just been accepted for publication by Developmental Psychology and should be in the July 2003 edition. Below is the abstract.

Jarrold, Butler, Cottington, and Jiminez (2000) proposed that weak central coherence is a primary cognitive deficit in autism, and speculated that it may even account for theory of mind impairments. The current study investigated whether weak central coherence could account for deficits in two behaviours purported to tap capabilities fundamental to a theory of mind, namely joint attention and pretend play.

Twenty-one children with autism spectrum disorders aged 3-5 years were matched to 21 control children on chronological age, nonverbal ability, and gender. Pretend play did not differentiate the groups. Weak central coherence, poor joint attention, and low verbal ability contributed significantly and independently to the prediction of autism group membership, consistent with three independent cognitive deficits underlying autism.