Sex differences in direction giving: Are boys better than girls?

Previous research has extensively documented sex differences favoring boys in various domains of spatial cognition. However, relatively little research has examined sex differences in children's direction giving. The current study aimed to bridge this gap. A total of 143 children aged 3 to 10 years were asked to describe and recall routes from survey perspectives (via maps) and route perspectives (via videos). Significant sex effects (favoring boys) in direction-giving accuracy were found in describing route trials. However, boys and girls did not differ in the frequency of utterances encoding landmarks and direction of turns, suggesting that the quality rather than the quantity of words played a more important role in explaining sex differences. In addition, there was no sex difference in the route recall task. Although accuracy was overall higher in the map condition than in the video condition, it did not moderate sex differences. Overall, our study showed a robust sex difference in direction giving, which has important theoretical implications for understanding the development of human sex differences and critical clinical implications for designing training programs to improve children's spatial cognition.

Performance- and Theater-Based Interventions for Supporting Social Cognition and Social Communication in Autistic Youth: A Review and Theoretical Synthesis.

Social skills interventions (SSIs) are commonly used to improve social functioning in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which is a condition characterized by differences in social cognition and social communication. Although more traditional SSIs have used knowledge-based, didactic instruction, recent research has explored the utility of performance-based SSIs, which use various activities to support implicit learning of social skills in supportive, enriched environments. This article reviews the extant literature evaluating the effectiveness or efficacy of five performance-based SSIs using theater-based approaches on social cognition and social communication. Overall, this body of literature suggests social communication gains that include increased peer interactions, peer liking, and reciprocal friendships, as well as social cognitive gains in theory of mind and affect recognition. This review also discusses theoretical models that may help explain the emerging strengths of performance- and theater-based SSIs with underlying hypotheses related to the social communication and social cognitive differences in ASD. Limitations of performance-based SSIs in the evidence-base include several approaches in initial stages of research with small sample sizes and limited maintenance of effects. Future research should aim to bridge the research-to-practice gap and use more rigorous designs and more diverse samples, including those with cooccurring intellectual disability.