ABSTRACT
This week the focus of the lesson is on humor. Humor is perhaps one of the more outstanding and obvious social deficits for many people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Teens with ASD often have substantial deficits in understanding punch lines to jokes (Emerich, Creaghead, Grether, Murray, & Grasha, 2003). Van Bourgondien and Mesibov (1987) reported that adults with high-functioning autism tended to tell jokes that were at the level of preschoolers, although 16% could tell jokes at the level of teenagers. Even given deficits in this area, many teens with ASD like to tell jokes. This, coupled with insensitivity to feedback from others after joke-telling, are the reasons for inclusion of this treatment module.
