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The aim of this study was to identify specific cognitive abilities that predict functional outcome in high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and to clarify the contribution of those abilities and their relationships. In total, 41 adults with ASD performed cognitive tasks in a broad range of neuro- and social cognitive domains, and information concerning functional outcomes was obtained. Regression analyses revealed that emotion perception and verbal generativity predicted adaptive functioning directly, and the former mediated between the other two. These findings provide the first evidence of a triadic relationship among neuro- and social cognition and functional outcome in this population. Our results suggest that psychosocial interventions targeting these cognitive abilities could benefit social adaptation in adults with ASD.

the aim of this study was to identify the cognitive structures of kanji abilities in the Japanese general population and to examine age and cohort effects on them. From a large database of the most popular kanji exam in Japan, we analyzed high school graduation level data of 33,659 people in 2006 and 16,971 people in 2016. Confirmatory factor analyses validated the three-dimensional model of kanji abilities, including factors of reading, writing and semantic comprehension. Furthermore, the age effect on writing, and correlations between writing and semantic dimensions, were different between 2006 and 2016, suggesting reduced writing ability and stagnation in integrated mastery of kanji orthography and semantics in current-day Japanese adults. These findings provide the first evidence of the multidimensional nature of Japanese kanji abilities, and age/cohort differences in that dimensional structure. The importance of the habit of handwriting for literacy acquisition is discussed.Writing systems can be broadly divided into phonographic and logographic scripts. In the former, a letter is mapped onto a sound unit, as in English. In the latter, a character is mapped onto a meaning unit, as for Chinese. Japanese uses both systems in combination, namely kana and kanji. Each kana letter represents one mora, a sub-syllabic unit of sound in Japanese, with highly regular and consistent letter-sound correspondence. In contrast, kanji characters usually have multiple pronunciations, which can also be written with more than one kana letter. The correct pronunciations of Japanese kanji words are determined by context and at the whole-word level, in a similar manner to English exception words, unlike the Chinese logographic writing systems. Kanji characters are used for content words (i.e. most nouns, or the roots of most verbs, adjectives, or adverbs), whereas kana letters are mainly used for inflectional endings, postpositions, or conjunctions. A single kanji character or more than two in the so-called compound words, occasionally accompanied by kana suffixes, can represent a word. Many homophones in the Japanese language are represented with the exact same kana letters but have different meanings, and can be discriminated by writing in kanji. In addition, unlike kana or alphabetical letters, kanji characters vary in visual complexity from simple characters such as the kanji カ to very complex ones like 鬱 (u-tsu, depression), both of which are designated as daily-use kanji by the Japanese government.Considering the unique properties of kanji, including multiple pronunciations, semantic values, and variability in visual complexity, it is assumed that the abilities to master and manage Japanese kanji would be multidimensional as for overall language ability 1,2 . However, the dimensional structure, whether uni-or multidimensional, has not been established. Given the higher prevalence of problems in literacy acquisition in kanji than in kana among Japanese children 3 , understanding the functional components of Japanese kanji abi...

The present study examined the relationship between multisensory integration and the temporal binding window (TBW) for multisensory processing in adults with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The ASD group was less likely than the typically developing group to perceive an illusory flash induced by multisensory integration during a sound-induced flash illusion (SIFI) task. Although both groups showed comparable TBWs during the multisensory temporal order judgment task, correlation analyses and Bayes factors provided moderate evidence that the reduced SIFI susceptibility was associated with the narrow TBW in the ASD group. These results suggest that the individuals with ASD exhibited atypical multisensory integration and that individual differences in the efficacy of this process might be affected by the temporal processing of multisensory information.

This study aimed to identify the cognitive underpinnings of Japanese kanji abilities and clarify the contributions of kanji acquisition to the development of higher-level language skills based on a three-dimensional view of kanji abilities encompassing reading accuracy, writing accuracy, and semantic comprehension. First, a series of regression analyses was used to identify the multifactorial models of each dimension of Japanese kanji acquisition. These models suggest that, among basic cognitive skills, naming speed, visuospatial processing, and syntactic processing underpin kanji abilities in a dimension-specific manner, whereas phonological processing is a common factor. Second, although all the dimensions of kanji abilities predicted acquired verbal knowledge equally, writing skills on the text level, measured as idea density, were only predicted by the writing dimension (indirectly via acquired knowledge). Our findings represent the first evidence of the dimension-specific relationships of the three dimensions of Japanese kanji abilities with their cognitive predictors, as well as with higher-level language skills. They suggest the importance of handwriting acquisition during school years for the development of language skills through to adulthood. Finally, taking the seminal “Nun study,” which suggests that higher idea density is protective against dementia, into account, we propose a theoretical framework for the lifelong trajectory of literacy acquisition.

Regarding the atypical characteristics of cognition and information processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), recent focus has been centered around fundamental processing, such as multisensory integration (MSI). Experimental studies have reported atypical MSI, especially audio-visual integration, in both children and adults with ASD using social (e.g., faces and voices) and nonsocial stimuli (e.g., flashes and beeps). Furthermore, there has been a gradual increase in the understanding of the behavioral (e.g., higher temporal resolution) and neural mechanisms (e.g., impaired phase alignment of neuro-oscillations) underlying atypical MSI in ASD. Previous studies have proposed that prominent deficits in social cognition and interactions (i.e., higherorder functions) are influenced and/or induced by atypicalities in MSI (i.e., lower-order function). Thus, interventions targeting MSI may promote social cognition, likely resulting in better outcomes in adulthood in individuals with ASD. This chapter describes current knowledge regarding multisensory processing in ASD and future perspectives on relevant research and practices.

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There is widespread concern about declining literacy skills in recent young Japanese. The present study investigated how higher-level reading and writing proficiencies are underpinned by basic literacy skills in Japanese adolescents. From a large database of the most popular literacy exams in Japan, we retrospectively analyzed word- and text-level data for middle and high school students who had taken the exams during the same period in the 2019 academic year using structural equation modeling. We extracted main data for 161 students as well as six independent datasets for validation. Our results validated the three-dimensional view of word-level literacy (reading accuracy, writing accuracy, and semantic comprehension) and demonstrated that writing and semantic skills underpinned text writing and reading, respectively. The semantic comprehension of words affected text writing indirectly via text reading; however, it could not replace the direct effect of word writing accuracy. These findings, which were robustly replicated with multiple independent datasets, provided new evidence of dimension-specific relationships between word- and text-level literacy skills and confirmed the unique contribution of word handwriting acquisition to text literacy proficiency. The replacement of handwriting by digital writing (e.g., typing) is a global trend. However, the dual-pathway model of literacy development identified in this study suggests there are advantages in sustaining early literacy education by handwriting for the growth of higher-level language skills in future generations. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11145-023-10433-3.