Impaired concept acquisition in children with ASD: beyond the enhanced perceptual processing hypothesis

Plaisted's theory of enhanced perceptual processing (2001), developed to explain impaired concept acquisition in children with ASD, presupposes that perception of similarity is the basis of concept acquisition. Hence, it is grounded in the similarity-based theory of concepts. This paper argues that the concept of similarity is a poor foundation for a viable theory of concept acquisition. Consequently, it argues for an account for how the child gets to see similarities in the course of development, instead of this being understood as the basis of concept development. This paper suggests that such an account will require a closer look at the development of multimodal perception and joint attention.