People with autism have difficulty adapting to changes in their environment and often adopt repetitive and rigid behaviors.
These behaviors are generally interpreted as a lack of cognitive flexibility, that is to say a difficulty in adopting a new rule.
But researchers from Inserm and the University of Tours show that another reason can explain this behavior. Concretely, researchers have noticed that autistic people only have difficulties when it comes to reacting to social and emotional information. It is then that they implement rigid behaviors, as a strategy to avoid these particular situations.
Greater brain activity
Other situations pose no more problems for them than for any other person; that is, they do not lack cognitive flexibility.
Furthermore, when there is a need to adopt a new behavior, the study shows that brain activity is greater in autistic people than in other people, and that this brain activity calms down when they receive confirmation. that they identified the right rule to adopt, as if the stakes of the choice were more important and that the validation of others was perceived as reassuring.
This work opens up new avenues for understanding and treating autism, by proposing to no longer dissociate the cognitive domain and the socio-emotional domain.
 Sophie de Duiéry
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14/05/2020 | 
