Journal of Intellectual Disability Research doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2009.01204.

x
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volume 53 part 11 pp 922–931 november 2009

Social information processing in boys with autistic

spectrum disorder and mild to borderline intellectual
disabilities jir_1204 922..931

P. Embregts1 & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen2

1 Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen and HAN University of Applied Sciences, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
2 Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Abstract typically developing boys in their encoding of infor-

mation; they focus on negative and emotional infor-
Background Children with autistic spectrum disor-
mation in the social situation. They differ from boys
ders (ASD) and mild to borderline intellectual dis-
with mild to borderline ID in response generation,
ability (ID) have less adaptive behaviour and more
evaluation of inadequate solutions (aggressive
behaviour problems than children with mild to bor-
and submissive responses) and assertive response
derline ID. Social information processing appears to
decision.
be an important mechanism in the explanation of
Conclusions The present study extends our knowl-
the socially inadequate behaviour of children with
edge regarding social information processing of
mild to borderline ID; however, little is known
children with ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild to bor-
about the social information processing skills of
derline ID. This knowledge may be helpful in
children with ASD and mild to borderline ID.
designing and adapting programmes (e.g. social
Method In the present study, a total of 136 boys in
skills training, self-management training) for the
the age of 10–14 years participated; 26 with ASD
management of behaviour problems and develop-
(specifically Pervasive Developmental Disorder –
ment of adaptive behaviour of children with ASD
Not Otherwise Specified) and mild to borderline
and mild to borderline ID.
ID, 54 with mild to borderline ID without ASD and
56 typically developing boys. They completed the Keywords autism spectrum disorders, mild
Social Problem Solving Test to measure their social intellectual disabilities, social behaviour, social
information processing. information processing
Results The research results show boys with PDD-
NOS and mild to borderline ID to differ from

Correspondence: Dr Petri Embregts, Behavioural Science Institute,

Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen,
The Netherlands (e-mail: p.embregts@pwo.ru.nl).
Authors’ note
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his valuable
remarks on a previous version of the manuscript.
Introduction
Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) co-occur with
any level of intelligence, but around 50% of indi-
viduals with ASD also have intellectual disabilities
(IDs) (Chakrabarti & Fombonne 2005; Baird et al.

© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
923
P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD
2006). Children with ASD and mild intellectual
disability (MID; limitations in intellectual function-
ing (IQ between 55 and 85) and in social and adap-
tive behaviour) find it difficult to interact with
others, and have less adaptive behaviour and more
behaviour problems than children with MID but
without ASD (Carpentieri & Morgan 1996; Hartley
et al. 2008). Concerning employment, education,
independent living and peer relations, the prognosis
of those individuals is poor (Billstedt et al. 2005).
Therefore, it is highly important to investigate the
underlying processes of the problems with social
interactions in these lower cognitive functioning
children with ASD. It has been argued that a lack of
social cognitive skills are a defining feature of a
variety of atypical developmental disorders, includ-
ing ASD. Despite ongoing attempts to elucidate the
complex relationship of IDs to ASD, there is not
much research known on social cognitive skills of
children with ASD and MID.
Various mechanisms, including emotional and
cognitive processes during social interaction, are
supposed to influence social behaviour. With respect
to inadequate social behaviour, the theory of social
information processing (SIP) which describes social
problem solving skills (Dodge 1986; Crick &
Dodge 1994) seems promising. Various behaviour
problems have been related to atypical social
problem solving (Crick & Dodge 1994), and this
model may be applicable to inadequate social
behaviour of clients with ASD and ID as well.
Within the SIP model, it is assumed that social
behaviour is preceded by the mental steps of encod-
ing, interpretation, goal clarification, response gen-
eration and response decision – with the latter
including response evaluation, judgments of self-
efficacy and response selection. That is, individuals
encode and interpret the information in a given
social situation and then set goals, search for pos-
sible responses, evaluate their response options and
select a response for enactment upon the basis of
the information that they have processed. It is pro-
posed that individual differences in the different
steps of SIP lead to different behavioural responses.
Considerable evidence exists to support the hypoth-
esis that the behaviour problems of children without
MID are related to their social problem solving
skills (Crick & Dodge 1994; Matthys & Lochman
2005).
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
volume 53 part 11 november 2009
The aim of the present study is to examine social
information processes in lower cognitive functioning
children with ASD (specifically Pervasive Develop-
mental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified; PDD-
NOS) and mild to borderline ID. Research on
social cognition of children with ASD focuses on
higher cognitive functioning children. In particular
children with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) have
recently been examined on their emotional and
social cognitive skills, and were found to differ in
SIP from children without AS. In a recent study by
Meyer et al. (2006), young people with AS were
shown to make more mistakes in the comprehen-
sion and analysis of social situations than children
without this syndrome. When young people with AS
were asked to evaluate hypothetical problem situa-
tions, such as a peer entry situation presented on
video, they had difficulties recognising the problem
within the conflict situations.
Children with ASD also face difficulties with rec-
ognition of emotions. Buitelaar et al. (1999) found
children with ASD to have no problems with recog-
nising simple emotions such as happiness, sadness
or anger when portrayed by photographed or drawn
faces. Other researchers have determined that a dif-
ference exists when more complex emotions are
involved such as shame, humour or flirtation. Adult
individuals with autism barely recognise these emo-
tions, and such problems may be exacerbated when
one can speak of an accompanying ID as well
(Baron-Cohen et al. 1997). Deficits in identifying
facial expressions have also been reported in chil-
dren with PDD-NOS (Castelli 2005). Serra et al.
(2003) concluded that children with PDD-NOS
were significantly slower in face recognition than
age-matched typically developing (TD) children,
while the recognition of abstract visuospatial pat-
terns did not discriminate between the groups.
In addition to the social perception procedures of
encoding and interpretation of social information,
researchers have studied the generation of appropri-
ate strategies for resolving social problems. The
ability of higher cognitive functioning children with
ASD to cope with social problem situations differs
from that of children without ASD. In a number of
studies, it has been found that children with AS can
generate just as many solutions to a problem as
children without this syndrome but that the nature
of the solutions differs (Channon et al. 2001; Meyer
 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
924
P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD
et al. 2006). Children with AS generate more
passive, and fewer assertive solutions than children
without the syndrome.
Despite these studies on higher functioning chil-
dren with ASD, knowledge on SIP in children with
ASD and ID is still lacking. From recent studies
with children with MIDs we have learned that their
SIP differs from that of children with average intel-
ligence and that SIP of children with MID is
related to externalising and aggressive behaviour
(Leffert & Siperstein 1996; Van Nieuwenhuijzen
et al. 2004, 2005, 2006). Children with MID tend
to encode more negative information and also are
less likely to generate assertive strategies than chil-
dren with average intellectual functioning (Van
Nieuwenhuijzen et al. 2004). Children with behav-
iour problems in addition to MID show primarily
difficulties with encoding of information and gener-
ating adequate solutions to social problem situa-
tions but show no problems whatsoever with the
selection of the most adequate solution when pre-
sented with various alternatives (Van Nieuwen-
huijzen et al. 2005, 2006, 2009). SIP thus appears
to be an important mechanism for explaining the
socially inadequate behaviour of children with MID.
Social cognitive processes in children with ASD
have also been studied using another theoretical
framework: Theory of Mind (ToM). ToM refers to
the ability to attribute mental states, beliefs and
thoughts to the self and to others, and is essential
for understanding and interpreting social situations
and interacting adequately. Three meta-analyses by
Yirmiya et al. (1998) have shown that children with
ASD are characterised by deficits in ToM; both
high and low functioning children with ASD differ
from TD children and children with MID.
However, children with MID also have deficits in
ToM abilities when compared with TD children,
albeit less severe than in children with ASD. One
plausible hypothesis, then, is that children with
ASD and MID differ in social cognitive processing
compared with both children with MID and TD
children.
Thus, the question is whether SIP in children
with ASD and MID differs from children with mild
to borderline ID and TD children. Therefore, in the
present study the SIP skills of children with ASD,
more specific PDD-NOS and mild to borderline ID
will be compared with those of children with mild
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
volume 53 part 11 november 2009
to borderline ID and TD children. We expected
both groups to differ in their SIP performance from
TD children, but we also expected to find differ-
ences between the two disability groups.
Method
Participants
A total of 136 boys in the age of 10–14 years par-
ticipated in the present study; 26 with ASD (PDD-
NOS) and mild to borderline ID, 54 with mild to
borderline ID without ASD (PDD-NOS) and 56
boys with average intelligence (TD controls).
According to the most recent definition of ID
provided by the American Association on Mental
Retardation children with IDs are characterised by
‘significant limitations both in intellectual function-
ing and in adaptive behaviour as expressed in
conceptual, social and practical adaptive skills’
(Luckasson et al. 2002, p. 1). Both children with
ASD (PDD-NOS) and children with mild to bor-
derline ID were selected from schools for special
education in the Netherlands. The criterion for such
school attendance is below-average intellectual
functioning (i.e. IQ range = 55–85) and limitations
in social and adaptive behaviour. Boys with ASD
(PDD-NOS) were selected if they had been diag-
nosed as having PDD-NOS by a psychologist or
psychiatrist. The TD group was selected from
regular schools and had a higher mean IQ than
both the other groups. The group of children with
PDD-NOS and mild to borderline ID had a
higher mean age than both the other groups (see
Table 1).
Instruments
IQ was determined on the basis of results of indi-
vidual intelligence testing obtained from school
records. In instances in which testing had not been
performed within the preceding 12 months, we esti-
mated the child’s IQ using the Raven’s Standard
Progressive Matrices (Raven et al. 1983), which con-
sists of incomplete arrays of abstract geometrical
figures. Participants were asked to discover the rela-
tions between the elements in the incomplete arrays
and choose the right figure on the basis of this
information to complete the array. The internal
 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
925
P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD
ASD Mild/borderline ID
N = 26 N = 54
M SD M SD
Age 12.54a,b 1.27 11.19a 1.60
IQ 83.33a 16.32 78.52b 14.98
a, b: Mean scores with corresponding superscripts differ significantly.
consistency values are around 0.90, and the test–
retest reliability varies from 0.90 for the short term
to 0.80 for the long term. This instrument has mod-
erate to high correlations with other situational tests
of intelligence (Raven et al. 1983).
The Social Problem Solving Test (SPT, Sociale
Probleem oplossings Test) (Cuperus 1997; Matthys
et al. 1999) was designed to measure SIP. The origi-
nal SPT consists of 12 video vignettes with a struc-
tured interview. For the present study, the original
version of the SPT was revised for use with chil-
dren with MID (SPT-MID; Van Nieuwenhuijzen
et al. 2001). Because a pilot study had shown the 12
vignettes to demand too much from children with
MID with regard to their attention and concentra-
tion, the number of video vignettes was reduced to
five and the questions were simplified. The remain-
ing vignettes include both peer-entry and provoca-
tion situations, which have shown to be part of one
and the same factor ‘Being disadvantaged’ (Matthys
et al. 2001). With the assistance of child actors, the
social problem of being placed at a disadvantage is
displayed in each vignette. Each videotaped vignette
consisted of two parts. First, the social problem was
presented (e.g. the protagonist trying to build a
Lego plane but not succeeding followed by another
boy offering to help but breaking the plane). There-
after, the protagonist enacted three solutions to the
problem: a pro-social/assertive response, an
antisocial/aggressive response and a passive/
submissive response.
Prior to the presentation of each video vignette,
participants were asked to identify with the protago-
nist. Following the viewing of a vignette but prior to
the presentation of the three different solutions, a
number of questions were posed. The interviewers
noted participants’ responses. The first question
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
volume 53 part 11 november 2009
Table 1 Age and IQ scores for children
TD with ASD (PDD-NOS), children with
mild to borderline ID, and typically
developing children
N = 56
M SD F P
10.54b 1.68 14.24 0.000
97.25a,b 14.52 22.07 0.000
assessed the encoding of cues: ‘What happened in this
scene?’ The mention of verbal, situational, emo-
tional or negative cues was coded. Phrases literally
repeated from the segment were coded as verbal
cues. Verbal descriptions of what happened in the
vignette, such as ‘they are playing with Lego’, were
coded as situational cues. Remarks regarding the
feelings of one of the children in the vignette (e.g.
‘he looks a bit sad’ or ‘he gets angry and starts
shouting’) were coded as the encoding of emotional
cues. When cues were interpreted negatively (e.g.
‘he said it in an unfriendly way’), they were coded
as negative cues. The average number of cues
encoded and the average number of verbal, situ-
ational, emotional and negative cues encoded were
calculated by summing the relevant number of cues
across the five vignettes and dividing by five.
The second question assessed children’s interpre-
tation of the information presented: ‘[event] hap-
pened, why did this happen?’ The participant was
asked to select one of three answers: (1) benign
intent (‘it wasn’t his fault, he tried to help me’); (2)
unkind (but not hostile) intent (‘he is clumsy’); or
(3) hostile intent (‘he did it on purpose’). A total
hostile intent attribution score was obtained by
counting the number of vignettes for which an
unkind or hostile answer was provided, with a
minimum of 0 (for none of the vignettes) and a
maximum of 5 (for all of the vignettes).
The next question assessed response generation:
‘What would you do?’ After provision of an initial
response, participants were asked to think of other
ways of responding to the situation. The total
number of responses generated was then coded
along with the quality of each response: pro-social/
assertive, antisocial/aggressive or passive/submissive.
Spontaneous response scores were obtained by
 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
926
P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD
counting the number of times each kind of response
was provided as the initial response, with a
minimum of 0 (never) and a maximum of 5
(always). A percentage score was then calculated
for each response category by summing the number
of responses representing a particular category
across the five vignettes and dividing this number
by the total number of responses. A total response
generation score was also obtained by summing
the number of generated responses across the
five vignettes and dividing this number by five.
A response variability score (i.e. indicator of a
child’s response repertoire) was obtained by
counting the number of qualitatively different
responses across the five vignettes and dividing by
five.
Next, the different enacted solutions to the
problem were viewed. Each solution was followed
by a number of questions to assess response evalua-
tion and self-efficacy. The first question concerned
evaluation of response outcomes either on the basis
of moral values or on pragmatic considerations such
as likely outcome: ‘Was this a good way for the
child to respond?’ to be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The
second question addressed participants’ confidence
in enacting the response (self-efficacy): ‘Would you
be able to behave in the same way?’ For each solu-
tion, a total evaluation score and a total self-efficacy
score were calculated by summing the number of
positive answers across the five vignettes, with a
minimum of 0 (never positive) and a maximum of 5
(always positive). After presentation of the three
alternative solutions and assessment of the partici-
pant’s reactions, the three videotaped solutions were
again presented to assess response selection. Partici-
pants were asked: ‘Which of the three responses
would you choose?’ The total number of assertive
and aggressive solutions chosen was summed over
the five vignettes.
To assess inter-rater reliability for coding of par-
ticipants’ answers to the open questions, both a
graduate student and the first author scored these
answers for 50 randomly chosen vignettes. The
Kappa values were found to be 0.79 for encoding
and 0.88 for response generation. In a previous
study on SIP in children with MID the answers to
the response generation question have correlated
moderately with actual behaviour in real-life
problem situations (r = 0.30) and highly with
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
volume 53 part 11 november 2009
behaviour in class as reported by the teacher
(r = 0.49) (Van Nieuwenhuijzen et al. 2005).
Data analysis
In order to determine whether the SIP skills of the
boys with ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild to borderline
ID differed from those of the boys with mild to
borderline ID and from the TD boys, a multivariate
analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was conducted
with group (ASD, MID, TD) as the independent
variable, the SIP variables as the dependent vari-
ables and age as covariate because groups differed
in age.
Results
After controlling for age, a multivariate main effect
of group was found, F38,230 = 4.17, P = 0.000. Next,
univariate ANOVAs were conducted for each SIP
variable separately.
Univariate main effects of group were found on
the encoding of emotional cues, F2,136 = 4.31,
P = 0.02 and a trend for negative cues, F2,136 = 2.80,
P = 0.06. As can be seen from Table 2, the group
ASD (PDD-NOS) encoded more emotional and
more negative information than the group TD.
Concerning response generation univariate main
effects of group were found on the spontaneous
submissive response generation, F2,136 = 4.57,
P = 0.01. Both groups ASD and TD generated
fewer spontaneous submissive responses than the
group mild to borderline ID. Univariate main
effects of group were also found on the evaluation
of assertive, F2,136 = 16.29, P = 0.000, aggressive,
F2,136 = 10.28, P = 0.000, and submissive responses,
F2,136 = 8.13, P = 0.000. As can be seen in Table 2,
compared with the group TD, both groups ASD
(PDD-NOS) and mild to borderline ID positively
evaluated assertive responses less often, with the
group mild to borderline ID the least. In addition,
the group ASD (PDD-NOS) positively evaluated
aggressive and submissive response less often than
both the groups mild to borderline ID and TD.
Concerning self-efficacy, univariate main effects
of group were found on self-efficacy of enacting
assertive F2,136 = 10.37, P = 0.000, and submissive
responses, F2,136 = 7.37, P = 0.001. The groups ASD
(PDD-NOS) and mild to borderline ID were less
 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research volume 53 part 11 november 2009
927
P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD

Table 2 SIP scores for children with ASD (PDD-NOS), with mild to borderline ID, and typically developing children

ASD Mild/borderline ID TD

N = 26 N = 54 N = 56

M SD M SD M SD F P

Encoding
Situational cues 2.71 1.23 2.77 1.15 2.92 0.97 2.58 n.s.
Verbal cues 0.84 0.50 0.68 0.48 0.59 0.44 1.56 n.s.
Emotional cues 0.30a 0.25 0.18 0.21 0.11a 0.16 4.31 0.02
Negative cues 0.55a 0.26 0.52 0.24 0.46a 0.21 2.80 0.06
Total cues 3.85 1.55 3.64 1.51 3.62 1.09 0.29 n.s.
Interpretation
Hostile intent attribution 2.73 1.00 2.74 0.94 2.57 0.95 0.41 n.s.
Response generation
Spontaneous assertive 2.85 1.57 2.43 1.18 2.80 1.33 1.52 n.s.
Spontaneous aggressive 0.88 1.03 0.69 0.93 0.89 1.07 0.69 n.s.
Spontaneous submissive 1.19a 1.17 1.87a,b 1.24 1.30b 1.01 4.57 0.01
Mean number of responses 2.18 1.15 1.99 0.32 1.90 0.36 0.96 n.s.
Evaluation
Assertive response 3.31a,b 1.12 2.67a,c 1.03 3.79b,c 1.00 16.29 0.000
Aggressive response 0.81a,b 0.85 1.96a,c 1.12 1.45b,c 1.31 10.28 0.000
Submissive response 1.92a 1.16 2.87a,b 1.26 2.09b 1.18 8.13 0.000
Self-efficacy for enactment
Assertive response 2.35a 1.35 2.22b 1.33 3.23a,b 1.19 10.37 0.000
Aggressive response 1.38 1.30 1.67 1.08 1.46 1.32 0.76 n.s.
Submissive response 1.27a 0.83 2.33a,b 1.37 1.63b 1.26 7.37 0.001
Selection
Assertive response 3.42a 1.21 2.54a,b 1.18 3.02b 1.24 4.40 0.01
Aggressive response 0.46 0.90 1.00 1.24 0.79 1.02 2.34 n.s.

a, b, c: Mean scores with corresponding superscripts differ significantly.

confident in enacting an assertive response than the
group TD. In addition, both the groups ASD
(PDD-NOS) and TD were less confident in
enacting submissive responses than the group mild
to borderline ID. Finally, a univariate effect was
found on assertive response decision, F2,136 = 4.40,
P = 0.01. Both the groups ASD (PDD-NOS) and
TD chose more often an assertive response than the
group mild to borderline ID.
Discussion
In the present study the SIP skills of boys with
PDD-NOS and mild to borderline ID are com-
pared with those of boys with mild to borderline ID
and TD boys. The research results show boys with
ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild to borderline ID to
differ from both boys with mild to borderline ID
and TD, but in different ways. On the one hand,
boys with ASD (PDD-NOS) differ from TD in
their encoding of information and evaluation of
assertive responses; they focus on negative and
emotional information in the social situation and
evaluate assertive responses less positively. On the
other hand they differ from mild to borderline ID
in response generation, evaluation of inadequate
solutions (aggressive and submissive responses) and
assertive response decision. In other words, boys
with ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild to borderline ID
appear to demonstrate greater competence in some
aspects of social problem-solving than boys with
mild to borderline ID. But even though boys with
ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild to borderline ID seem
to know that aggressive and submissive responses

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 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
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P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD
are not quite adequate to solve social problem situ-
ations, they do not believe assertive responses have
positive consequences and do not consider them-
selves capable enough to enact those responses.
The results seem to be in line with other research
findings (Van Nieuwenhuijzen et al. 2009), that
showed children with MID to choose more often an
assertive response out of three possible solutions,
but not to generate them spontaneously. Similar to
children with MID, children with ASD (PDD-
NOS) and mild to borderline ID seem to know how
to respond adequately in social problem situations,
but apparently do not behave accordingly; possibly
because they find difficulties in transferring their
knowledge to other social situations or because they
are not confident enough in enacting adequate
responses.
At the same time, however, they focus on nega-
tive information in a social situation more often
than TD boys. A similar phenomenon appears to
occur for children who are aggressive, anxious or
depressed: Such children tend to interpret situa-
tions more often as threatening and hostile than
children who do not show these characteristics
(Garber et al. 1991; Quiggle et al. 1992; Bell-Dolan
1995; Daleiden & Vasey 1997; Orobio de Castro
et al. 2002). Apparently such children view the
outside world with suspicion. While it is not clear
where this predisposition comes from, it is possible
that previous experiences in which others intention-
ally mistreated them have been saved as schemes in
their memories.
There are, however, also some unexpected find-
ings. Boys with mild to borderline ID and ASD
appear to demonstrate greater competence in some
aspects of social problem-solving than boys with
mild to borderline ID alone; they generated less
submissive responses and chose more often an
assertive response. One possible explanation for the
higher assertive scores in the ASD (PDD-NOS)
group is that children with PDD-NOS may have
received extra training in social problem-solving
skills. At almost all schools for special education
children receive social skills training. However,
although we did not collect data on treatment, it is
very likely that part of these children with PDD-
NOS received some kind of treatment outside of
school because of their dual diagnosis, which may
have influenced their problem solving skills.
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
volume 53 part 11 november 2009
Another explanation is that boys with ASD and
mild to borderline ID may not actually be demon-
strating greater skill in social cognition than chil-
dren with ID, but rather different patterns. There is
evidence from previous research (Siperstein &
Leffert 1997) suggesting that ‘low-risk’ submissive
strategies may actually be adaptive for this popula-
tion. In this study, the socially accepted children
with ID were more likely to generate submissive
strategies than socially rejected children with ID.
Although these findings were obtained in public
school settings, they may be true for special schools
as well. It may be that children with ID find peer
interactions and conflicts risky and that based on
their experiences, they have concluded that the best
way to cope with these conflicts is by employing
submissive strategies. Only if we had data regarding
the social behaviour and/or social status of these
children could we interpret these results more
clearly. Nevertheless, this study uncovered differ-
ences in SIP between the two disability groups, and
further research is needed to explore the connection
between social cognition and social behaviour in
this population so that we can better understand
their characteristic patterns of social cognition and
the role that these patterns play in their overall
social functioning.
In addition we did not expect children with mild
to borderline ID and ASD to encode more emo-
tional information than TD children, because chil-
dren with ASD are generally characterised by poor
emotion processing. However, previous studies have
shown children with PDD-NOS to have better
abilities than children with ASD regarding faces
recognition and emotion processing, and even the
same as TD children (Serra et al. 1998).
When interpreting the results of our study, its
strengths and limitations should be taken into
account. An important strength concerns the inclu-
sion of children with ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild
to borderline ID; the study is the first to apply the
SIP theory to children with ASD (PDD-NOS). It is
important to gain knowledge on their social cogni-
tive skills, as more and more children are being
identified as having ASD (PDD-NOS).
A potential limitation concerns the sample.
Because the study only included boys in the age
range of 10–14 years old, these results cannot be
generalised to all children with ASD (PDD-NOS)
 Journal of Intellectual Disability Research
929
P. Embregts & M. van Nieuwenhuijzen • SIP and ASD
and mild to borderline ID. In addition, the group of
children with ASD (PDD-NOS) and mild to bor-
derline ID was relatively small compared with the
other two groups in the study. Therefore, we suggest
that future research studies replicate these findings
on a larger scale.
A second limitation concerns social abilities of
the respondents in this sample. The premise of the
study is that both children with ASD (PDD-NOS)
and mild to borderline ID, and children with mild
to borderline ID might be socially impaired owing
to atypical SIP. However, this study lacks data on
social ability or social impairment of the respon-
dents. All respondents were selected from schools
for special education in the Netherlands. Admission
criteria for these schools imply that they have
below-average IQ and limitations in adaptive behav-
iour. Previous research has shown that children
from special education score lower on social skills
and social adaptive behaviour than TD children
from normal schools (Dekker et al. 2002; Van Nieu-
wenhuijzen et al. 2004).
These findings have implications for treatment of
behaviour problems in children with ASD (PDD-
NOS) and mild to borderline ID and intervention
programmes. If children with ASD (PDD-NOS)
know how to respond adequately, but do not evalu-
ate those responses positively and have not enough
confidence to enact those responses, they should be
trained in problem-solving skills. By practising these
skills in role plays they will experience positive out-
comes and which may increase their self-esteem.
Recently, a cognitive behaviour training programme
has been developed for children with MID, based
on the proven effective Coping Power Program
(Lochman & Wells 2003, 2004). The programme
entitled ‘Samen Stevig Staan’ [Standing Strong
Together] includes a social problem-solving training
protocol for children and a training of parenting
skills for their parents (Van ‘t Hof et al. 2009). The
programme may be relevant for children with ASD
(PDD-NOS) as well, after adaptation for children
with ASD.
Past literature that has looked at children’s per-
formance of social cognitive processes has cited the
existence of a gap between children’s ability to
reason in hypothetical or practice situations and
their behaviour in response to social challenges in
real life. The use of self-management procedures
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
volume 53 part 11 november 2009
would be helpful in overcoming this gap (e.g.
Sherer et al. 2001). Procedures of self-management,
such as self-monitoring, self-recording, self-
evaluation and self-administering consequences
have shown to be effective with youth with MID
and behaviour problems (Embregts 2000, 2002).
Research has shown that self-monitoring can be
helpful in reducing external control with people
with ASD and by consequence, to facilitate gener-
alisation across stimulus dimensions (e.g. Koegel &
Koegel 1990). Therefore, we recommend a combi-
nation of a social problem-solving training protocol
with self-management in the natural setting (at
home or the classroom) of the child to maximise
the effects of the training.
Additional research is needed with larger repre-
sentative samples including girls, not only to further
study SIP of children with ASD (PDD-NOS) and
mild to borderline ID, but also to examine the rela-
tions between social problem-solving skills and
behaviour problems, in order to develop effective
interventions. More research to improve the devel-
opmental prognosis for such children is needed and
more research to adapt the parenting and guidance
of these children to their potential and possibilities
is essential.
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