International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Review

Baron-Cohen (2008) and colleagues suggest children 2-8 with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can learn skills like emotion recognition from media content like Thomas the Tank Engine. Whereas these researchers posited in their Hyper-Systemizing Theory that the reason for learning lies in idiosyncrasies related to ASD, this author contends that the manner in which the media is crafted is the key to success. To test this notion experimentally, a “hybrid theory” specific to the learning needs of children with ASD is necessary. This paper thus fuses elements from the following information processing theories with Hyper-Systemizing Theory to create such a hybrid: Cognitive Load Theory, the Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing, Capacity Model, and the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. The goal is to craft a theoretical model to serve as the basis for future work in the area of ASD and learning from mediated content.