Strategic Social Decision Making in Typically Developing and Autistic Early Adolescents

A study comparing 48 typically developing and 56 autistic children (ages 8-12) found both groups adapted their trust-based cooperation similarly, but differed in how age and social skills influenced behavior—with social skills predicting TD children's behavior more strongly, while age was a stronger predictor in autistic children. Computational modeling revealed autistic children had lower prior beliefs about others' trustworthiness compared to TD peers, with this difference correlating to social skill levels.