Autistic adults benefit from and enjoy learning via social interaction as much as neurotypical adults do

Abstract

Background: Autistic people show poor processing of social signals (i.e. about the social world). But how do they learn via social interaction?

Methods: 68 neurotypical adults and 60 autistic adults learned about obscure items (e.g. exotic animals) over Zoom (i) in a live video-call with the teacher, (ii) from a recorded learner-teacher interaction video and (iii) from a recorded teacher-alone video. Data were analysed via analysis of variance and multi-level regression models.

Results: Live teaching provided the most optimal learning condition, with no difference between groups. Enjoyment was the strongest predictor of learning: both groups enjoyed the live interaction significantly more than other condition and reported similar anxiety levels across conditions.

Limitations: Some of the autistic participants were self-diagnosed-however, further analysis where these participants were excluded showed the same results. Recruiting participants over online platforms may have introduced bias in our sample. Future work should investigate learning in social contexts via diverse sources (e.g. schools).

Conclusions: These findings advocate for a distinction between learning about the social versus learning via the social: cognitive models of autism should be revisited to consider social interaction not just as a puzzle to decode but rather a medium through which people, including neuro-diverse groups, learn about the world around them. Trial registration Part of this work has been pre-registered before data collection https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/5PGA3.

Keywords: Autism; Online education; Social cognition; Social interaction; Social learning.