Comparison among children with children with autism spectrum disorder, nonverbal learning disorder and typically developing children on measures of executive functioning.

The team compared three groups of kids on paper-and-pencil executive-function tasks.

One group had autism, one had nonverbal learning disorder, and one group was typically developing.

They looked for small, day-to-day thinking differences that parents and teachers often notice first.

Kids with autism struggled most when rules changed mid-game.

Kids with nonverbal learning disorder had trouble lining up pictures in the right order.

Other skills looked almost the same across all three groups.

Cummings et al. (2024) tracked the same kids over years and found that autistic executive skills grow at the same speed as typical peers.

That sounds opposite, but Margaret et al. only took one snapshot, while K et al. watched change across time.

Gambra et al. (2024) later showed that both autism and nonverbal learning disorder share weak central coherence, backing up the idea that the two labels overlap more than they differ.

McIntyre et al. (2017) pushed the story into adulthood, showing that autistic adults lose executive speed faster than typical adults, so early flexibility training may pay off later.

If a child stalls when the schedule flips, flag flexibility for extra practice.

If a child mixes up visual sequences, probe for nonverbal learning issues.

Use quick tabletop switching tasks and picture-ordering games to decide which skill needs your next teaching block.