An experiment was carried out to see if children with autism responded to these questions correctly. Three groups of children were tested (one at a time) on the Sally-Anne task.
Participant groups | Participants | Average Age |
Experimental group | 20 children with autism | 11 years 11 months |
Control group 1 | 14 children with Down’s syndrome | 10 years 11 months |
Control group 2 | 27 typically developing children | 4 years 5 months |
Following accepted matching procedures, the children with autism selected for the task were a similar age to the children with Down’s syndrome but older than the neurotypical children. The IQ of the autistic children was higher than that of the neurotypical or Down’s syndrome children. This means that if the autistic children don’t pass the test, it is not because they have a lower intellectual level than the neurotypical or Down’s syndrome children.