Kids with autism tend to skip "silly" unnecessary actions while imitating the behaviour of an adult while those without the disorder tend to copy everything they see, a new study has found.
Mimicking the behaviour of parents has long been considered a vital way in which kids learn about the world around them.
Now psychologists at The University of Nottingham have shown that copying unnecessary behaviour is more likely to be a social phenomenon than part of the practical process of acquiring new skills.
In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, the scientists found that autistic children, who have profound difficulty in engaging in social situations, were less likely to copy unnecessary behaviour when learning a new task.
"Our study showed that typically developing children copy everything an adult does, even when they know that some of the actions are 'silly'," Dr Antonia Hamilton, who led the research in the University's School of Psychology, said.
"In contrast, the children with autism only copied the useful actions - in a way, they are getting the job done more efficiently than the typical children.
"These results show us that copying unnecessary actions is a social phenomenon, it is not just about learning how to use objects," Hamilton said in a statement.
The scientists tested 31 children on the autistic spectrum and 30 typically developing children with the same level of language skills and a further 30 typically developing children who were matched by age.
Typical children copied 43-57 per cent of the unnecessary actions, while the autistic children copied only 22 per cent.
The children were then asked to watch the demonstration again, and judge if each action was 'sensible' or 'silly'.
All kids could do this task, but typical children found it easier, meaning that typical children copied the unnecessary actions even though they know the actions are silly.
Scientists argue that typical kids copy everything an adult does because they are more eager to please and 'fit in'.
The children with autism showed significantly less over imitation but this was not linked to weak motor skills as all the unnecessary actions were simple and familiar and less complex than others in the sequence.
It was also not driven by superior reasoning skills because the autistic children performed worse on the task to accurately judge the rationality of each task.
