This study examined delay of gratification behaviors in preschool-aged children with and without autism spectrum disorder. Recent research has found that elementary-aged children with autism spectrum disorder showed challenges with delay of gratification and that there were individual differences in terms of children’s behaviors during the wait. We extend this work to a younger sample of children with autism spectrum disorder to understand whether these difficulties emerge by the preschool years. Moreover, we assessed whether individual differences in other key self-regulatory capacities (i.e. effortful control, emotion regulation, executive function, and joint attention) were related to delay of gratification wait durations or behavioral strategies. Findings revealed that preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder waited for a shorter duration, demonstrated more temptation-focused behaviors, and expressed less positive affect than their typical peers during the delay of gratification task. At the full-sample level, individual differences in children’s temptation-focused behaviors (i.e. visual attention and verbalizations focused on the temptation) were related to children’s executive function, joint attention, and parents’ ratings of emotion regulation. When we examined associations within groups, the associations were not significant for the autism spectrum disorder group, but for typically developing children, there was a positive association between temptation-focused behaviors and emotion regulation.

The current study investigated relations among children's sensory responses, dyadic orienting, joint attention, and their subsequent social competence with peers. Participants were 38 children (18 children with autism spectrum disorder [ASD] and 20 developmentally matched children with typical development) between the ages of 2.75 and 6.5 years. Observational coding was conducted to assess children's joint attention and dyadic orienting in a structured social communication task. Children's sensory responses and social competence were measured with parent report. Group differences were observed in children's joint attention, sensory responses, multisensory dyadic orienting, and social competence, with the ASD group showing significantly greater social impairment and sensory responses compared with their typical peers. Atypical sensory responses were negatively associated with individual differences on social competence subscales. Interaction effects were observed between diagnostic group and sensory responses with diagnostic group moderating the relation between sensory responses and both joint attention and social competence abilities. Highlights We explored patterns of relations between sensory responses, social competence, and joint attention among preschoolers with high functioning autism and typical development. Differential relations were found between sensory responses, social competence, and joint attention for children with autism compared with those with typical development. Individuals with ASD may process sensory stimuli differently compared to individuals with TD.

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