Comparing Intellectual and Memory Abilities of Older Autistic Adults with Typically Developing Older Adults Using WAIS-IV and WMS-IV

Tse, Venus W. S.; Crabtree, Jason; Islam, Shamsun; Stott, Joshua

doi:10.1007/s10803-019-04122-w

Cited by 28 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Thus, in older autistic men with a late adulthood ASC diagnosis and (above) average IQ, EF problems in daily life are clearly reported on, while this is not reflected in their cognitive test performance and is not differentially impacted by their age. The consistency of findings across the current study and the Davids et al (2016) study, is in sharp contrast with the lack of consistency across the broader range of studies including older autistic adults (Braden et al 2017;Geurts and Vissers 2012;Lever and Geurts 2016a, b;Powell et al 2017;Tse et al 2019;Walsh et al 2019). This inconsistency in findings could be due to differences in sample characteristics (age, sex, IQ level), type of cognitive tasks included, chosen statistical analyses, and how intelligence levels were accounted for.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 65%

“…Moreover, their proxies also observed that the autistic adults experienced daily life EF problems. In yet another recent and similar study (Tse et al 2019; N ASC = 28, N non-ASC = 27, age 50-72 years) the ASC group was generally slower and performed less well on visual WM as compared to the non-ASC group. Unfortunately, in these studies age-related differences were not explored.…”

mentioning

confidence: 71%

“…The overall score on this test will be used to measure general IQ (TIQ), as this is needed to check the inclusion criteria. Like in Davids et al (2016) the processing speed index (PSI) is used as part of the EF assessment (see also Tse et al 2019). We also included the WM index (WMI) to cover the WM domain.…”

Section: Objective Ef Assessment: Neuropsychological Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To our knowledge only seven papers reported on objective clinical EF measures of a (clinically) diagnosed ASC adult sample of which approximately 50% of the participants was over 45 years of age (Braden et al 2017;Davids et al 2016;Geurts and Vissers 2012;Lever and Geurts 2016a;Powell et al 2017;Tse et al 2019;Walsh et al 2019). The findings, however, are inconsistent.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In sum, the relationship between age and EF problems in old age ASC still remains unclear, due to contradictory neuropsychological results and overall small sample sizes. There is an insufficient focus on older adults as in most studies the mean age does not exceed 60 (except for Geurts and Vissers 2012;Davids et al 2016;Tse et al 2019), whilst it is known that various cognitive problems in healthy aging do not start to emerge until the age of 60 (Nilsson et al 2009;Treitz et al 2007). Therefore, in the current study we will focus a similar age-range and use similar EF tasks as in Geurts and Vissers (2012) and Davids et al (2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Executive Functioning in 60+ Autistic Males: The Discrepancy Between Experienced Challenges and Cognitive Performance

Geurts

Pol

Lobbestael

et al. 2020

J Autism Dev Disord

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As executive functioning (EF) is especially sensitive to age-related cognitive decline, EF was evaluated by using a multimethod assessment. Fifty males (60-85 years) with a late adulthood autism spectrum condition (ASC) diagnosis and 51 non-ASC males (60-83 years) were compared on cognitive tests across EF domains (cognitive flexibility, planning, processing speed, and working memory) and a self-and proxy report of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Version. While no objective performance differences emerged, autistic males and their proxies did report more EF challenges than non-ASC males on the subjective measure. In order to know how to support the older autistic men who received their ASC diagnosis in late adulthood with their daily life EF challenges, it is important to understand what underlies these subjective EF problems.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 65%

mentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Objective Ef Assessment: Neuropsychological Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Executive Functioning in 60+ Autistic Males: The Discrepancy Between Experienced Challenges and Cognitive Performance

Geurts

Pol

Lobbestael

et al. 2020

J Autism Dev Disord

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Short‐Term Memory Span and Cross‐Modality Integration in Younger and Older Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

et al. 2020

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This study tested whether adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show the same pattern of difficulties and absence of age-related differences in short-term memory (STM) as those that have been reported in episodic long-term memory (LTM). Fifty-three adults with ASD (age range: 25-65 years) were compared to 52 age-, biological sex-, and intelligencematched typically developing (TD; age range: 21-67 years) adults on three STM span tasks, which tested STM performance for letters (Verbal), grid locations (Visuospatial), or letters in grid locations (Multimodal). A subsample of 34 TD and 33 ASD participants ranging in age from 25 to 64 years completed a fourth Multimodal Integration task. We also administered the Color Trails Test as a measure of executive function. ASD participants' accuracy was lower than that of the TD participants on the three span tasks (Cohen's d: 0.26-0.50). The Integration task difference was marginally significant (p = .07) but had a moderate effect size (Cohen's d = 0.50). Regression analyses confirmed reduced STM performance only for older TD participants. Analyses also indicated that executive processes played a greater role in the ASD group's performance. The demonstration of similar difficulties and age-related patterning of STM in ASD to those documented for LTM and the greater recruitment of executive processes by older ASD participants on the Integration task suggest a compensatory role of frontal processes both as a means of achieving undiminished task performance and as a possible protection against older age cognitive decline in ASD. Longitudinal research is needed to confirm this.

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Parallel age‐related cognitive effects in autism: A cross‐sectional replication study

et al. 2021

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Findings on age-related cognitive effects in autism in adulthood are inconsistent across studies. As these studies substantially differ in their methodology, replication studies are needed. In this replication study frequentist (i.e., nullhypothesis significance testing), and Bayesian statistics were used to investigate the hypothesis that in autistic adults compared to non-autistic adults mostly parallel, but also protective age-related cognitive effects can be observed. Participants were 88 autistic adults, and 88 non-autistic matched comparisons (age range: 30-89 years, mean age: 55 years). Cognitive measures were administered on the following six domains: verbal memory, visual memory, working memory, Theory of Mind (ToM), verbal fluency, and processing speed, and self-reported cognitive failures. Non-autistic adults outperformed autistic adults on ToM, verbal fluency, and verbal memory, but only the first two were confirmed with Bayesian replication analyses. Also, more cognitive failures were reported by autistic adults. No interactions between group and age were observed, suggesting a parallel age-related effect on all cognitive domains. In sum, previously observed difficulties in ToM and verbal fluency were replicated which seem to persist at older age. Previously reported parallel age-related cognitive patterns were replicated, yet no evidence for protective age-related patterns was found. Lay summaryWe investigated whether our previous findings on cognitive aging in autism could be confirmed in a new study measuring the cognitive effects of age in autistic and non-autistic adults. As expected, tasks that younger autistic adults had difficulties with (theory of mind, fluency) were also difficult for older autistic adults, and the effect of age itself was similar in autistic and non-autistic adults. Unexpectedly, we observed no protective effects (less cognitive aging) in autism.

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Comparing Intellectual and Memory Abilities of Older Autistic Adults with Typically Developing Older Adults Using WAIS-IV and WMS-IV

Cited by 28 publications

References 60 publications

Executive Functioning in 60+ Autistic Males: The Discrepancy Between Experienced Challenges and Cognitive Performance

Executive Functioning in 60+ Autistic Males: The Discrepancy Between Experienced Challenges and Cognitive Performance

Short‐Term Memory Span and Cross‐Modality Integration in Younger and Older Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Parallel age‐related cognitive effects in autism: A cross‐sectional replication study

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