Executive functioning in individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders.
In mild-borderline ID you can measure separate EF skills, but an autism diagnosis does not predict lower scores.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave executive-function tests to adults with mild-borderline intellectual disability. Some had autism. Some did not.
They used stats to see if three EF skills—working memory, shifting, and inhibition—showed up as separate abilities. Then they asked: does having autism predict worse scores?
What they found
The three EF skills did split apart neatly in this ID group. That means you can measure them separately, just like in typical adults.
But autism status made no difference. The ASD and non-ASD groups scored the same on every EF task.
How this fits with other research
McClain et al. (2022) looked at toddlers and preschoolers with ID, with or without autism. They also found working memory was the shakiest EF, but they did see autism-linked deficits. The age gap may explain the mismatch: early childhood EFs are more fragile.
Ko et al. (2024) tested preschoolers with ASD only and found big EF deficits that drove autism symptoms. Ohan et al. (2015) show that once ID is present and people are older, the autism label alone no longer predicts worse EF scores.
Danielsson et al. (2012) mapped a mixed EF profile in school-age ID: spared fluency, weak inhibition and planning. The current study backs that structure in adults and adds that autism does not worsen the picture.
Why it matters
Stop assuming every client with ASD plus ID will have poorer executive skills than their ID-only peer. Instead, run individual EF probes and target the specific skill that flops—usually working memory. Use the same EF batteries you use with typical adults; they hold up in mild-borderline ID.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Executive functioning (EF) is important for adequate behavioural functioning and crucial for explaining symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in individuals with normal intelligence, but is scarcely studied in individuals with ASD and intellectual disabilities (ID). We therefore study EF in an ID population by comparing performances on three frequently studied executive functions (shifting, inhibition and updating) between individuals with ASD and individuals without ASD. When studying ID populations, one should be aware of Spearman's Law of Diminishing Returns (SLODR), as it questions the possibility of measuring separate cognitive functions in ID populations. METHODS: Six EF tasks were administered to 50 individuals with mild to borderline ID, of which half was diagnosed with ASD. In order to investigate the distinctness of the three executive functions in this ID sample, the results on the six EF tasks were subjected to principal components analysis (PCA). Subsequently, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to assess differences between the ASD and non-ASD group on shifting, inhibition and updating. RESULTS: The PCA revealed the hypothesised EF trichotomy. MANOVA analysis showed no significant group differences on EF-performance. CONCLUSIONS: Three separate executive functions were measured in this ID population, but despite much evidence that individuals with ASD display more behavioural problems and the proven relevance of EF in behavioural functioning, no significant group difference was found on shifting, inhibition or updating. After this first effort to achieve more insight into EF of individuals with ASD and ID the relation between behavioural problems and EF will require further study.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2015 · doi:10.1111/jir.12085