OBJECTIVE Social-emotional processing is key to daily interactions and routines, yet a challenging construct to quantify. Measuring social and emotional processing in young children, children with language impairments, or non-verbal children, presents additional challenges. This study addresses a pressing need for tools to probe internal responses such as feelings, drives, and motivations that do not rely on intact language skills. METHODS In this study, we extend our recent success of inducing conditioned place preference (CPP) in children to demonstrate the success of using a social unconditioned stimulus in the CPP paradigm in both typically developing children (n = 36) and in children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (n = 14). RESULTS This is the first study to demonstrate successful social conditioned place preference in the human population. Both typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate significant social conditioned place preference by spending significantly more time in the room paired with social interaction following training. CONCLUSIONS Significant heterogeneity of CPP scores in both groups of children indicates that social motivation is expressed along a continuum, and that the CPP paradigm may provide a more comprehensive characterization of social motivation beyond a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder for each child.

中文翻译：

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适应社会条件的场所偏爱以便在幼儿中使用。

目的社交情绪处理是日常互动和例行程序的关键，但它是量化的挑战性结构。测量幼儿，有语言障碍的儿童或非语言儿童的社交和情感处理能力会带来更多挑战。这项研究满足了对工具的迫切需求，这些工具可以用来探索不依赖完整语言技能的内部响应，例如感觉，动力和动机。方法在本研究中，我们扩展了我们最近在儿童中诱导条件性位置偏爱（CPP）的成功，以证明在CPP范式中，在典型的发育中儿童（n = 36）和有诊断的儿童中成功使用社交无条件刺激自闭症谱系障碍（n = 14）。结果这是第一个证明成功的社会条件下的场所在人群中偏好的研究。通常发育中的儿童和患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童都表现出明显的社交条件场所偏好，这是通过在训练中花费大量时间与社交互动相结合而在房间中花费更多的时间。结论两组儿童中CPP评分的显着异质性表明，社会动机是沿着连续体表达的，并且CPP范式可以为诊断每个孩子的自闭症谱系障碍提供更全面的社会动机特征。通常发育中的儿童和患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童都表现出明显的社交条件场所偏好，这是通过在训练中花费大量时间与社交互动相结合而在房间中花费更多的时间。结论两组儿童中CPP评分的显着异质性表明，社会动机是沿着连续体表达的，并且CPP范式可以为诊断每个孩子的自闭症谱系障碍提供更全面的社会动机特征。通常发育中的儿童和患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童都表现出明显的社交条件场所偏好，这是通过在训练中花费大量时间与社交互动相结合而在房间中花费更多的时间。结论两组儿童中CPP评分的显着异质性表明，社会动机是沿着连续体表达的，并且CPP范式可以为诊断每个孩子的自闭症谱系障碍提供更全面的社会动机特征。