Neuropsychological Profile in High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

A comprehensive investigation of the neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses of children with autism may help to better describe their cognitive abilities and to design appropriate interventions. To this end we compared the NEPSY-II profiles of 22 children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) with those of 44 healthy control (HC) children 2:1 matched by gender, age, race and education. Results showed that only Visuospatial Processing was relatively spared in HFASD, while deficits were observed in Attention and Executive Functions, Language, Learning and Memory, and Sensorimotor Processing. Theory of Mind difficulties were observed in verbal tasks but not in the understanding of emotional contexts, suggesting that appropriate contextual cues might help emotion understanding in HFASD children. These widespread neuropsychological impairments reflect alterations in multiple cognitive domains in HFASD.

Neuropsychological Performance of Egyptian Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…Our finding of poorer performance in children with ASD compared to TD children on Language domain is consistent with previous studies using NEPSY (Hooper et al, 2006;Korkman et al, 2007;Narzisi et al, 2013). Also, our results concur with other studies on language deficits in children with ASD and expanded the findings as affecting also children with ASD + ADHD.…”

“…In line with the earlier ASD studies (Hooper, Poon, Marcus, & Fine, 2006;Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 2007;Narzisi et al, 2013), that used NEPSY, our sample of children with ASD and ASD + ADHD faired worse than TD children in their ability to judge line orientation. However, there is another study that employed another study (Narzisi et al, 2013).…”

“…In line with earlier studies that compared children with ASD and ASD + ADHD to TD children (Ambery et al, 2006;Barron-Linnankoski et al, 2015;Bramham et al, 2009;Geurts et al, 2004;Tager-Flusberg, 2004;Narzisi et al, 2013;Rumsey & Hamburger 1988, 1990Saalasti et al, 2008;Turner 1999;Verte et al, 2006), both groups had wide-ranging language difficulties in generating words of semantic category, processing and responding to verbal instruction of increasing syntactic complexity, accessing and producing familiar words, understanding the grammar of sentences with increasing complexity, and in rhythmic oromotor coordination. Similarly, our ASD and ASD + ADHD samples demonstrated deficits in identifying words from segments and forming an auditory gestalt (Tager-Flusberg, 2004;Narzisi et al, 2013) and deficits in phonemic fluency (Tager-Flusberg, 2004;Schmidt, Kopelioff, Winterrowd, Pennington, Hepburn, & Rojas, 2008). However, in contrast, results from a study by Barron-Linnankoski and colleagues (2015) found intact comprehension of instructions in their ASD sample, which might be attributed to IQ differences when compared to our sample.…”

“…Previous studies, which have evaluated these domains, separately included children with ASD (Barron-Linnankoski et al, 2015;Hooper, Poon, Marcus, & Fine, 2006;Narzisi, Muratori, Calderoni, Fabbro, & Urgesi, 2013;Williams, Goldstein, & Minshew, 2006a) or ADHD (Rizzutti et al, 2008;Rucklidge & Tannock, 2002).…”

Narratives of mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders: focus on eating behavior

“…1 The disorder has a heterogenous phenotype, in relation to both symptoms and severity. 2 Several studies conducted from the point of view of the healthcare professional/physician indicated that individuals with ASD are resistant to change and have a narrow range of interests that may affect even the food they eat.…”