Inhibitory control in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Autism-linked inhibition problems are task-specific, so test several kinds of control before labeling global executive dysfunction.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Emerson et al. (2007) gave three inhibition games to children with autism and to typical kids.
They held age, IQ, and processing speed the same across groups so those factors would not cloud the scores.
The tasks tapped different kinds of stopping: holding back a first impulse, ignoring extra pictures, and solving conflicting cues.
What they found
Children with autism scored lower on two of the three games.
The slips were not global; they showed up only on tasks that asked for quick rule changes and strong focus.
The authors say the deficit is selective, not a wide breakdown of executive skills.
How this fits with other research
Sanderson et al. (2013) later mapped the problem more finely. They saw autism kids struggle only when rules clash, not when they simply wait or ignore simple distractors.
Early et al. (2012) echoed this split: the same kids could stop a motor response but could not tune out extra pictures.
Walley et al. (2005) looked earlier and found no autism-only effect; poor inhibition linked to language delay and inattention instead. The 2007 study sharpens the picture by showing a clear, though narrow, autism-linked gap once language and IQ are held constant.
Why it matters
You now know inhibition is not broken across the board in autism. Check which kind of control a task needs before writing an executive-function goal. If the child must ignore conflicting cues, give extra practice, visual prompts, or reduce competing stimuli. If the task only asks for simple waiting, typical strategies may work fine.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Impairments in executive abilities such as cognitive flexibility have been identified in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It remains unclear, however, whether such individuals also experience impairments in another executive ability: inhibitory control. In the present study, we administered three inhibitory tasks to 18 children with ASD, 23 siblings of children with ASD, and 25 typically developing children. After controlling for individual differences in age, overall IQ, and processing speed, children with ASD demonstrated impaired performance on two of the three inhibitory tasks. Results suggest that children with ASD experience circumscribed deficits in some but not all aspects of inhibitory control. More generally, the findings underscore the importance of using multiple measures to assess a putative single cognitive ability.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2007 · doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0259-y