Executive function, motivation, and emotion recognition in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder.
Late-talking ASD teens need EF and motivation support, not just social skills.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Payne et al. (2020) compared teens with high-functioning autism who had, or had not, been late to talk.
They measured planning, drive, and reading faces.
Typical teens served as a yard-stick.
What they found
ASD teens who talked late scored lower on planning games and motivation tasks.
ASD teens who talked on time only slipped on face-reading tests.
Both groups still had normal IQ.
How this fits with other research
Goodwin et al. (2017) saw no gap in daily skills between ASD kids with or without early language delay.
The gap shows up only when you test cold planning and hot drive in teens, so age and task type matter.
Howlin (2003) also found no adult outcome split, hinting the window of extra risk closes after the teen years.
Petrolo et al. (2025) warn that early EF trouble forecasts later social woes, lining up with the wider teen deficits seen here.
Why it matters
If a client talked late, layer EF and motivation checks into your teen assessment.
Use brief planning games or parent questions about homework drive.
Add visual prompts or reward menus to shore up these weak spots before they stall job or college plans.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Several neurocognitive theories have been put forward to explain autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the specificity of executive cognitive, motivational (i.e., reward-related), and emotion-recognition impairments in ASD, and the role of early language delay in these impairments remain largely unclear. AIM: This study aimed to examine executive cognitive, motivational, and emotion-recognition functions while considering the potential effect of language delay in ASD. METHODS: Twenty-two adolescents with high-functioning ASD (20 males) and 22 typically developing (TD) adolescents (16 males) aged 11-18 years were recruited. Each completed seven computerized tasks measuring executive cognitive (i.e., set-shifting, inhibition, updating, and access/generativity), motivational (i.e., flexible reinforcement learning and affective decision-making), and emotion-recognition functions (i.e., facial emotion recognition). RESULTS: We found that ASD participants with early language delay (n = 10) had poorer executive cognitive, motivational, and emotion-recognition functioning than TD controls, and had poorer executive cognitive and motivational functioning than ASD participants without language delay (n = 12). ASD participants without language delay only had poorer emotion recognition than TD controls. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: These preliminary findings suggest impairments in executive cognitive and motivational functions as well as emotion recognition in ASD with language delay, and impairment only in emotion recognition in ASD without language delay. They implicate a potential partial distinction in mental abilities between ASD with and without early language delay, highlighting the importance of considering language delay when evaluating executive cognitive and motivational functions in ASD.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2020 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103730