British scientists revealed that teaching autistic children how to develop inner speech skills might help them cope with daily tasks later in life. A study that was conducted by researchers at Durham, Bristol and City University London and published in the Development and Psychopathology journal involved 15 adults with high-functioning autism and 16 neurotypical adults for comparison. The volunteers were asked to complete a test of planning ability for which typical people would normally use “thinking in words” strategies. When the two groups were asked to do the task while also repeating outloudacertainword,suchas“Tuesday” or “Thursday” designed to distract them, the control group found the task much harder, while the autistic group were not bothered by the distraction. This study suggests that unlike neurotypical adults, participants with autism do not normally use inner speech to help themselves plan. These results also suggest that children with autism may do better at school if they are encouraged to learn their daily timetable verbally rather than using visualplans,whichiscurrentlyacommon approach.
