Imitation in ASD: Performance on an imitation choice task

•Imitation of direction and goal was similar in ASD and typical development.•Children with ASD showed less imitation of the way in which an action is performed.•What children with ASD choose to imitate differs from typical development.•Children with ASD do imitate, but what they imitate is different. Previous research has demonstrated mixed results with regard to the profile of imitation abilities in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). While most research has examined the question of “do” children with ASD imitate, little research has examined “what” they imitate. The answer to these questions is not always the same. Twenty-five children with a diagnosis of ASD and 41 children with typical development participated in an imitation task with an exact imitation condition (i.e., child could directly imitate the examiner’s actions) and a choice imitation condition (i.e., direct imitation was precluded). In the choice imitation condition, children could choose to imitate either the end result (goal) of the examiner’s action or the direction of the examiner’s action (path). Additionally, the way the action was performed (manner) was evaluated across both conditions. Results revealed that children with ASD and children with typical development showed similar proportions of path and goal imitation during the exact imitation condition. However, children with ASD showed less imitation of the manner component than the children with typical development. In the choice imitation condition, children with ASD demonstrated neither a path nor a goal preference while children with typical development showed a path preference. Overall, the results suggest that what children with ASD choose to imitate differs from those that children with typical development choose; suggesting that children with ASD do imitate, but what they imitate is different. Implications for assessment of imitation and interventions that use imitation are discussed.