Creativity in Autism: An Examination of General and Mathematical Creative Thinking Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Children with Typical Development

This study investigated creative thinking abilities among two groups of 20 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) compared to 20 children with typical development ages 9–11. The study compared performance on two different creativity tests: general creativity (Pictorial Multiple Solutions-PMS) test versus mathematical creativity (Creating Equal Number-CEN) test, and investigated relationships between general and mathematical creative thinking across various cognitive measures including non-verbal IQ, verbal and non-verbal working memory and Attention. Results of the study demonstrate significant correlations among the measures of creativity indicating that the PMS and the CEN tasks represent different skills, or perhaps, different domains of creativity. Findings suggest that creativity can be found among individuals with ASD.