Development of a novel, theoretically motivated scale to assess cognitive learning styles related to the autism spectrum

BACKGROUND: Although theoretical efforts have been made to address the cognitive learning styles of individuals on the autism spectrum, no instrument to measure such learning styles is currently available. The current study aimed to develop such a scale based on the learning style theory of Qian and Lipkin (Front Hum Neurosci 5:77, 2011). METHODS: Response data from total of 768 undergraduate students was used for this study. This sample was split into two subsamples of N = 460 and N = 308 for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), respectively. The correlations between the resulting new subscales and some other potentially related measures were examined. RESULTS: A three-factor structure with 19 items was obtained measuring need for task clarity/familiarity, susceptibility to cognitive load, and the grasping of conceptual relations. CONCLUSIONS: This newly developed measure can be used to help understand the nature of the individual differences in cognitive processing that are evident across both the autism spectrum as well as the overall population more generally.