Adolescent-Specific Motivation Deficits in Autism Versus Typical Development

Bos, Dienke J.; Silver, Benjamin M.; Barnes, Emily D.; Ajodan, Eliana L.; Silverman, Melanie; Clark-Whitney, Elysha; Tarpey, Thaddeus; Jones, Rebecca M.

doi:10.1007/s10803-019-04258-9

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Difficulties in cognitive flexibility in autism have been mainly evident in attention‐shifting (Eigsti et al, 2008 ; Memari et al, 2013 ; Mostert‐Kerckhoffs et al, 2015 ), updating (Peristeri et al, 2020 ) and verbal dual‐task interference paradigms (Peristeri et al, 2021 ), and they have been linked to autistic children's increased susceptibility to perseverative thought and behavior. Difficulties in cognitive flexibility have also been key to explaining autistic school‐aged children's rigidity in judgment and decision making despite subsequent correction or cues denoting changing task conditions (Bos et al, 2019 ; D'Cruz et al, 2013 ); autistic individuals tend to perseverate on narrow topics and struggle with transitions or seeing novel relationships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children

2022

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We examined the cognitive flexibility performance of young autistic children and a group of neurotypical peers. Thirty‐six autistic children (72–83 months) and 200 age‐matched typically‐developing children were assessed on the Children's Color Trails Test (CCTT), a semantic and a phonemic verbal fluency task. The results showed that the autistic children performed worse than their neurotypical peers in the switching component of the CCTT. In the fluency tests, the autistic group generated overall fewer word items than their neurotypical peers, however, their poorer performance was driven by specific linguistic stimuli in the fluency tasks. The findings suggest that cognitive flexibility for the autistic children was affected in the nonverbal CCTT only, while poor performance in semantic and phonemic fluency seemed to be inherent to the language properties of the verbal fluency tasks.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children

2022

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“…Discussion of motivation in autistic young adults has largely centered around the social motivation hypothesis of autism spectrum disorders, which argues that autistic individuals receive less innate value from typical social stimuli (Chevallier et al, 2012 ; Bottini, 2018 ). In adolescence, this may manifest in autistic students as a lack of response to typically motivating social cues such as facial expressions or body language (Bos et al, 2020 ). Social motivation in adolescents and adults has also been analyzed using a self-determination theory framework, a theory of motivation that proposes three intrinsic needs that determine decision-making: autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Chen et al, 2015 ; Deci & Ryan, 2000 ).…”

Section: High School Math and Motivation For Autistic Studentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

High School Math and Motivation for autistic students

Cooper

Farkas

2022

J Autism Dev Disord

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Analyzing data from students in the NCES High School Longitudinal Study dataset, we drew upon expectancy-value theory to examine the role of student motivation (measured by self-efficacy, identity, utility, and interest), as mediators between 9th grade math test scores and final math GPA for autistic students. In predicting final high school math GPA, math identity was the strongest predictor for autistic students with above average test scores. Findings for autistic students contrast with results for non-autistic students whose final math GPA is strongly predicted by the direct effects of 9th grade test scores. These results suggest that seeing oneself as a “math person” may be particularly influential for autistic students with higher 9th grade math performance.

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