Children with autism have difficulty in solving social problems and in generating multiple solutions
to problems. They are, however, relatively skilled in responding to visual cues such
as pictures and animations. Eight distinct social problems were presented on a computer, along
with a choice of possible solutions, and an option to produce alternative solutions. Eight
preschool children with autism and eight matched normal children went through 10 training
sessions interleaved with 6 probe sessions. Children were asked to provide solutions to animated
problem scenes in all the sessions. Unlike the probe sessions, in the training sessions
problem solutions were first explained thoroughly by the trainer. Subsequently these explanations
were illustrated using dynamic animations of the solutions. Although children with
autism produced significantly fewer alternative solutions compared to their normal peers, a
steady increase across probe sessions was observed for the autistic group. The frequency of
new ideas was directly predicted by the diagnostic category of autism. Results suggest young
children with autism and their normal peers can be taught problem-solving strategies with the
aid of computer interfaces. More research is required to establish whether such computerassisted
instruction will generalize to nontrained problem situations in real-life contexts.