Increasing adaptive behavior skill deficits from childhood to adolescence in autism spectrum disorder: role of executive function.
Adaptive behavior gaps widen with age in bright autistic teens, driven by lagging executive skills.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tracked 100 youth with high-functioning autism for up to eight years.
Kids were 5 to 25 years old and had IQ scores in the average range.
Each year parents filled out the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales and an executive-function checklist.
What they found
Daily-living, social, and communication skills all slipped further behind same-age peers as the kids got older.
Poor executive function—like trouble planning, shifting, or holding rules in mind—predicted the biggest skill gaps.
Even bright teens with autism lost ground in real-world independence.
How this fits with other research
Terroux et al. (2025) show the same link in preschoolers: weak inhibition and working memory already map to lower adaptive scores.
Myers et al. (2018) replicate the pattern across ASD and typical kids, adding that metacognitive skills protect against depression too.
Whitehouse et al. (2014) foreshadowed the decline, finding that verbal problem-solving efficiency drops with age in high-functioning autism.
Why it matters
You can’t assume adaptive skills will catch up once language or IQ looks solid. Track Vineland or EFA scores yearly and watch for widening gaps. Build executive-function supports—visual schedules, checklists, self-monitoring—into daily routines early. Targeting planning and flexibility now may keep teens safer, more employable, and less reliant on caregivers later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Almost half of all children with autism spectrum disorder have average cognitive abilities, yet outcome remains poor. Because outcome in HFASD is more related to adaptive behavior skills than cognitive level it is important to identify predictors of adaptive behavior. This study examines cognitive and demographic factors related to adaptive behavior, with specific attention to the role of executive function (EF) in youth with HFASD aged 4-23. There was a negative relationship between age and adaptive behavior and the discrepancy between IQ and adaptive behavior increased with age. EF problems contributed to lower adaptive behavior scores across domains. As such, it is important to target adaptive skills, and the EF problems that may contribute to them, in youth with HFASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2015 · doi:10.1155/2013/415989