過去累積許多關於自閉症類兒童模仿的研究；其中，Lyons等人（2011）提出自動化因果編錄（ACE）是相當重要的理論。ACE認為自閉症類兒童之所以重演缺乏目標的動作，是因為部件相連作業呈現的外觀連續性，令自閉症類兒童較易將缺乏目標的動作視為導致目標動作前的必要動作。於是本研究的目的在於驗證自閉症類兒童的動作重演表現是否符合自動化因果編錄理論的預測：當部件分離時，自閉症類兒童無法推論缺乏目標的動作是否有出現的必要，於是動作重演將減少。本研究邀請24名自閉症類兒童，以及配對心理年齡30個月大的21名發展遲緩兒童與24名一般發展兒童，將部件相連與部件分離作業當作組內的操弄變項，並另外施測無意義物體動作作業，將帶有目標的有關動作、缺乏目標的無關動作與無意義物體動作三者當作依變項，比較三組兒童的動作重演表現。結果發現：一、自閉症類兒童在有關動作前重演的無關動作並沒有在部件分離作業中較少，此結果不支持ACE理論。二、自閉症類兒童能夠重演無關動作，不易重演無意義物體動作，或許是因為自閉症類兒童可以重演物體本身提供的動作屬性，然而抑制已形成的習慣有困難。三、自閉症類兒童重演有關動作與無意義物體動作的表現較另二組差，兩者正相關，而無關動作的重演表現與另二組無異，也許是因為無意義物體動作與有關動作的相似度較高，皆可被視為示範動作中的主要目標動作，而無關動作較屬於次要的動作；換句話說，或許自閉症類兒童的困難在於重演主要目標的動作，但是重演次要動作的困難則不明顯。整體而言，本研究對於早期自閉症類兒童的社會學習障礙提出可能的觀點。 / Research showed distinctive imitative pattern in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs), and one of the possible explanations is automatic causal encoding (ACE; Lyons et al, 2011). In ACE’s view, connective parts of task facilitate ASDs to copy actions without goals, which are seen as necessary to occur before copying actions with goals. Present research is to examine ACE theory in ASDs: when parts of the task separate, ASDs cannot infer the necessity of actions with goals to copy, and behaviors copying reduce. 69 children at mental age 30 months (24 ASDs, 21 developmental delay, and 24 normal development) enrolled our experiment, which was composed of connective parts of task, separate parts of task, and meaningless object movement task, with related actions (related to goal), unrelated actions(unrelated to goal), and meaningless object movements served as dependent variables. Several findings arose. First, copying behaviors of unrelated actions prior to related actions did not decline in separate parts of task, which disapprove ACE theory. Second, irrelevant actions copying was unimpaired in ASDs, while meaningless object movements copying seemed difficult for ASDs, which may due to ASDs’ ability to copy object properties of actions, but inability to inhibit habituated routines. Third, ASDs copied related actions and meaningless object movements less than the other groups, and the two actions were positively correlated, while unrelated actions copying showed no difficulty. This demonstrates that related actions and meaningless object movements are both actions with primary goals, while unrelated actions are subordinate actions; namely, one possible difficulty for ASDs to copy is actions with primary goal, while copying subordinate actions seems unimpaired. In sum, present research provides perspectives on ASDs’ impairments with social learning.