Distractor Inhibition in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence of a Selective Impairment for Individuals with Co-occurring Motor Difficulties.
Distractor trouble in autism is tied to motor delays, not to autism itself.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lindor et al. (2019) asked whether all kids with autism struggle to ignore distractions.
They split children with ASD into two groups: those with motor delays and those without.
Both groups did a computer task where they had to ignore extra pictures while picking the right one.
What they found
Only the kids with autism plus motor problems made lots of mistakes on the ignore-the-distractor game.
Children with autism but typical motor skills scored the same as typical kids.
The result says attention trouble is not a blanket autism trait; it tags along with motor issues.
How this fits with other research
Early et al. (2012) first said autistic kids fail distractor tasks. Ebony shows that failure is limited to the subgroup who also move clumsily.
Sanderson et al. (2013) found no distractor problem at all. The new study explains the clash: Charlotte mixed all ASD kids together, washing out the motor-impaired subset who really do struggle.
McAuliffe et al. (2017) proved motor planning is a separate hurdle in ASD. Ebony links that same motor hurdle to why some kids cannot filter out visual noise.
Why it matters
Before you write "poor attention" in a report, check the child’s motor score. If it’s low, shrink visual clutter, use blocked practice, and teach hand-over-hand scanning. If motor skills are fine, look elsewhere for why work dips.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although most researchers agree that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) exhibit atypical attention, there is little consensus on the exact nature of their deficits. We explored whether attentional control in ASD varies as a function of motor proficiency. Nineteen children with ASD and 26 typically-developing controls completed the Movement Assessment Battery for Children and two ocular motor tasks requiring them to generate a saccade toward, and fixate, a visual target in the presence or absence of a distractor. The ASD group demonstrated poorer accuracy than typically-developing controls when distractors were present. Importantly, however, ASD symptomology was only related to poorer accuracy in individuals with motor difficulties. These findings suggest that distractor inhibition may be selectively impaired in this subgroup.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2019 · doi:10.1007/s10803-018-3744-1