Brief report: cognitive performance in autism and Asperger's syndrome: what are the differences?
Planning and Attention—not all cognitive skills—set autistic disorder apart from Asperger's.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the kids a PASS test. PASS looks at Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive skills.
the kids had autistic disorder. 20 had Asperger's. 20 were typical peers. Ages ranged from 8 to 16.
What they found
Kids with autistic disorder scored lower on Planning and Attention than kids with Asperger's.
Both clinical groups scored lower than typical peers overall.
Kids with Asperger's looked like typical peers on Simultaneous and Successive tasks.
How this fits with other research
Weiss et al. (2001) saw the same split earlier. They found high-functioning autism had trouble shifting attention, while Asperger's did not.
Hsieh et al. (2014) extends the Planning gap. They showed preschoolers with ASD already struggle with future planning tasks.
Alonso Soriano et al. (2015) seems to disagree. They found no visual processing bias in ASD teens. The key is age and task: Claudia used teens and simple visual tasks, while Stefano used broader cognitive tests.
Williams et al. (2010) also found no attentional blink difference between groups. This supports the idea that basic timing is intact, but higher-order planning is not.
Why it matters
When you assess a child with ASD, check Planning and Attention first. These skills may need goals even if other scores look fine. For kids with Asperger's, focus goals on social use of intact cognitive skills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Autism spectrum disorders include autistic and Asperger's Syndrome (AS), often studied in terms of executive functions (EF), with controversial results. Using Planning Attention Simultaneous Successive theory (PASS; Das et al. in Assessment of cognitive processes: the PASS theory of intelligence. Allyn and Bacon, Boston, MA, 1994), this research compares the cognitive profiles obtained by the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS; Naglieri and Das in Cognitive assessment system. Riverside, Itasca, IL, 1997) of 15 subjects with typical development, 18 with autistic disorder and 20 with AS. Results highlight lower profiles for children with autistic and AS compared with typical development and even lower Planning and Attention processes for the group with autistic disorders than that with Asperger's. Subjects with Asperger's diagnosis do not differ from those with typical development as regards Simultaneous and Successive processes. Results are discussed in the light of current studies about EF.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2013 · doi:10.1007/s10803-013-1828-5