Comparing the Executive Function Ability of Autistic and Non-autistic Adolescents with a Manualised Battery of Neuropsychological Tasks.
Open-ended executive-function tasks reveal larger gaps in autistic teens than tightly scripted tests.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kenny et al. (2022) gave a set of open-ended brain games to autistic and non-autistic teens.
The tasks asked kids to plan, shift rules, and solve problems without step-by-step help.
All teens had average IQ so the test could spot pure executive-function gaps.
What they found
Autistic teens scored lower on most tasks, especially the ones with no clear steps.
They used fewer self-talk tricks and gave odd answers that did not fit the hidden rule.
The gap grew when the test let kids pick their own plan.
How this fits with other research
Ozonoff et al. (2004) and Chen et al. (2001) saw the same kind of deficits using older card and computer tests.
Reinvall et al. (2013) mixed results: autistic teens were strong with words but weak with faces and motor speed. Lorcan’s team shows the weak spot is bigger when tasks are open-ended, not just when they tap faces or speed.
Rajendran et al. (2011) used one virtual shopping game and also found poorer multitasking. Lorcan widens the lens: many open tasks, same story.
Why it matters
If you test an autistic teen with highly structured drills, you may miss the real-life problem. Swap in one open task, like asking the kid to plan a party with no checklist, and watch how they set goals, shift, and self-cue. That view gives you clearer targets for coaching self-management, scripting, and rule-finding skills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The executive function (EF) theory of autism has received much support recently from a growing number of studies. However, executive impairments have not always been easy to identify consistently and so novel "ecologically valid" tests have been designed which tap into real-life scenarios that are relevant to and representative of everyday behavior. One characteristic of many of these tasks is that they present the participant with an "ill-structured" or "open-ended" situation. Here, we investigated the possibility that tasks with greater degrees of open-endedness might prove more sensitive to detecting executive impairment in autism. Forty-five children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were compared to 27 age- and IQ-matched control children on a range of cognitive tests of EF. Group differences were found on half of the tasks, with the greatest degree of impairment detected on the more open-ended tasks. The ASD group also performed more poorly on a simple control condition of a task. Detailed consideration of task performance suggested that the ASD group tended to create fewer spontaneous strategies and exhibit more idiosyncratic behavior, which particularly disadvantaged them on the more open-ended tasks. These kinds of behaviors have been reported in studies of neurological patients with frontal lobe involvement, prima facie suggesting a link between the scientific fields. However, we suggest that this behavior might equally result from a poor understanding of the implicit demands made by the experimenter in open-ended test situations, due to the socio-communicative difficulties of these children.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2022 · doi:10.1002/aur.78