Young autistic people have a range of social difficulties, but it is not yet clear how these difficulties can be explained. In addition, emerging research is suggesting that autistic girls may differ from boys in terms of their social behaviors, but yet unknown is if they differ in terms of their pro‐social behavior, such as helping. The present study investigated spontaneous helping behavior using an in vivo paradigm and related this to participants' levels of social motivation (based on parent reports). Participants were 233 autistic and non‐autistic (pre‐)adolescents (M = 12.46 years, SD = 15.54 months). Our results demonstrated that autistic girls and boys have lower levels of social motivation compared to their non‐autistic peers, but social motivation was unrelated to helping behavior in both groups. Furthermore, when the experimenter needed help, the autistic boys and girls looked and smiled to the same extent as their peers of the same gender, but they actually helped significantly less than their non‐autistic peers. However, most autistic youngsters did help, highlighting the great individual differences in autistic individuals. We discuss the possibility that lower levels of helping behavior are due to difficulty initiating action in a social context, rather than lower social motivation. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1796–1804. © 2019 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

中文翻译：

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自闭症和非自闭症（前）青少年的自发性帮助行为：动机吗？

年轻的自闭症患者有一系列的社会困难，但目前尚不清楚如何解释这些困难。此外，新兴的研究表明，自闭症女孩的社交行为可能与男孩不同，但未知的是，他们在亲社会行为（如帮助）方面是否有所不同。本研究使用体内范式调查了自发性帮助行为，并将其与参与者的社会动机水平相关（基于父母的报告）。参加者为233名自闭和非自闭（前）青少年（M = 12.46岁，SD= 15.54个月）。我们的结果表明，自闭症男孩和男孩比非自闭症同伴具有较低的社会动机水平，但社会动机与两组儿童的行为举止均无关。此外，当实验者需要帮助时，自闭症男孩和女孩的表情和微笑程度与同性别的同龄人相同，但实际上他们的帮助远少于非自闭症的同龄人。但是，大多数自闭症青少年确实提供了帮助，突出了自闭症患者的巨大个体差异。我们讨论了较低的帮助行为是由于难以在社会环境中发起行动而不是较低的社会动机而导致的。自闭症研究2019，12：1796–1804。©2019作者。由Wiley Periodicals，Inc.出版的国际自闭症研究协会出版的《自闭症研究》。