Persuasion in Chinese School-Age Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders

A large body of work has been done on the deficient conversation skills in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), yet little is known about their performance in other discourse types such as persuasion. The study investigated the persuasion skills in Chinese children with high-functioning ASD. Ten school-age Chinese children with ASD were gender, age, and language matched with 10 typically developing (TD) peers. Persuasion was evaluated via a role-play and a direct temptation task in terms of the participants' persistence and the persuasive strategies used. Results showed no difference in persistence between the two groups. The TD group performed significantly better in their persuasive strategies used. A significant main effect of task was observed where children in both groups performed better in the role-play than the direct temptation task. The present findings provide an account of why children with high-functioning ASD often experience unsuccessful persuasion outcomes in real-life situations.