D make some mental state inferences but these inferences were contextually inappropriate, suggesting that the problem is not necessarily one of inferencing about mental states but of coherence or the integration of contextual information (Happ?1994; Jolliffe Baron-Cohen 1999; Kaland et al. 2005). The individuals with ASD in these studies were described as giving order Pyrvinium embonate correct physical state answers for some of the stories in which a mental state (ToM) response was expected, suggesting that the participants with ASD may have been able to draw an inference but failed to focus on the expected elements of the story (Happ?1994; Kaland et al. 2005). The suggestion that contextual integration is what is challenging for individuals with ASD rather than inferencing per se was supported by the results of a study with children from three different clinical groups, one of which was a small number (10) of children, ages 6 to 10 years, with high-functioning autism (Norbury Bishop 2002). In that study, stories were read aloud to the participants and questions relating to three types of inferences (literal, textconnecting, and gap-filling) were asked. The results indicated that participants withAuthor purchase KF-89617 Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptJ Autism Dev Disord. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 September 01.Bodner et al.Pagepragmatic language impairment, specific language impairment, and autism all had more difficulty answering literal and inferential questions than the age-matched peers with typical development. The children with autism had relatively more difficulty making inferences than other children with linguistic impairments and the children with more behavioral symptoms of autism had poorer inferencing. An error analysis indicated that the problem for the children from all three clinical groups, including the children with autism, was not in making inferences per se but in making inferences that related to the context of the story (Norbury Bishop, 2002). Differential responsiveness to contextual demands by verbal adults with ASD with cognitive abilities in the average range as compared to age- and IQ-matched adults with typical development was also evident in the Mason et al. (2008) functional imaging study mentioned above. In that study, three different types of information were included in the bridging inferences: a) physical causation, b) mental states, and c) emotional states. Given that the task was designed to be successfully performed by the participants, the behavioral performance on the three conditions did not differ for either the ASD or the control group of individuals with typical development. Despite a lack of difference in the behavioral performance, the brain activation data for the ASD group differed from that of the control group particularly in one very interesting way. The activation pattern for the ASD group was highly similar for all three types of inferences, whereas the pattern differed for the controls with typical development by condition. That is, the data of the control group indicated a sensitivity to the differing demands of the three text conditions that was not evident in the data for the ASD group (Mason et al. 2008). Rationale for the Current Study The nature of inference making in ASD also lacks clarity because difficulty with making inferences, even for social information, has not been a universal finding, particularly when more indirect behavioral measures have been used. For.D make some mental state inferences but these inferences were contextually inappropriate, suggesting that the problem is not necessarily one of inferencing about mental states but of coherence or the integration of contextual information (Happ?1994; Jolliffe Baron-Cohen 1999; Kaland et al. 2005). The individuals with ASD in these studies were described as giving correct physical state answers for some of the stories in which a mental state (ToM) response was expected, suggesting that the participants with ASD may have been able to draw an inference but failed to focus on the expected elements of the story (Happ?1994; Kaland et al. 2005). The suggestion that contextual integration is what is challenging for individuals with ASD rather than inferencing per se was supported by the results of a study with children from three different clinical groups, one of which was a small number (10) of children, ages 6 to 10 years, with high-functioning autism (Norbury Bishop 2002). In that study, stories were read aloud to the participants and questions relating to three types of inferences (literal, textconnecting, and gap-filling) were asked. The results indicated that participants withAuthor Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptJ Autism Dev Disord. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 September 01.Bodner et al.Pagepragmatic language impairment, specific language impairment, and autism all had more difficulty answering literal and inferential questions than the age-matched peers with typical development. The children with autism had relatively more difficulty making inferences than other children with linguistic impairments and the children with more behavioral symptoms of autism had poorer inferencing. An error analysis indicated that the problem for the children from all three clinical groups, including the children with autism, was not in making inferences per se but in making inferences that related to the context of the story (Norbury Bishop, 2002). Differential responsiveness to contextual demands by verbal adults with ASD with cognitive abilities in the average range as compared to age- and IQ-matched adults with typical development was also evident in the Mason et al. (2008) functional imaging study mentioned above. In that study, three different types of information were included in the bridging inferences: a) physical causation, b) mental states, and c) emotional states. Given that the task was designed to be successfully performed by the participants, the behavioral performance on the three conditions did not differ for either the ASD or the control group of individuals with typical development. Despite a lack of difference in the behavioral performance, the brain activation data for the ASD group differed from that of the control group particularly in one very interesting way. The activation pattern for the ASD group was highly similar for all three types of inferences, whereas the pattern differed for the controls with typical development by condition. That is, the data of the control group indicated a sensitivity to the differing demands of the three text conditions that was not evident in the data for the ASD group (Mason et al. 2008). Rationale for the Current Study The nature of inference making in ASD also lacks clarity because difficulty with making inferences, even for social information, has not been a universal finding, particularly when more indirect behavioral measures have been used. For.
