It has long been claimed that individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impaired prosocial behavior, however there is little direct evidence in support of this claim and inconsistencies have been reported in the literature. Therefore, the goal of this study was to compare the levels of altruistic behavior in 15 young children with an ASD and 14 children with Down syndrome, paired in chronological age (age range between 2 years and 8 months and 6 years and 2 months) and non-verbal intellectual ability. Our results showed that children with an ASD engaged less frequently in altruistic behavior compared to the DS group. In addition, we found a significant negative correlation between the severity of autism symptoms and altruistic behavior in the ASD group, suggesting that the more severe the symptoms of ASD, the less frequent the altruistic behaviors. Conversely, no significant correlations were found between non-verbal IQ level and performance in the altruistic behavior tasks, in either group. Overall, our results suggest that, regardless of intellectual skills, the ability to engage in altruistic behavior is compromised in young children with ASD.

长期以来一直声称患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 的个体表现出受损的亲社会行为，但是几乎没有直接证据支持这种说法，并且文献中报道了不一致。因此，本研究的目的是比较 15 名患有 ASD 的幼儿和 14 名患有唐氏综合症的儿童的利他行为水平，按实际年龄配对（年龄范围介于 2 岁 8 个月和 6 岁 2 个月之间）和非语言智力。我们的结果表明，与 DS 组相比，患有 ASD 的儿童参与利他行为的频率较低。此外，我们发现 ASD 组的自闭症症状严重程度与利他行为之间存在显着负相关，表明 ASD 症状越严重，利他行为的频率越低。相反，两组的非语言智商水平与利他行为任务的表现之间均未发现显着相关性。总体而言，我们的结果表明，无论智力技能如何，患有 ASD 的幼儿从事利他行为的能力都会受到损害。