Phonological and Visuospatial Working Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

We evaluated phonological and visuospatial working memory (WM) in autism spectrum disorders. Autistic children and typically developing children were compared. We used WM tasks that measured phonological and visuospatial WM up to the capacity limit of each children. Overall measures of WM did not show differences between autistic children and control children. However, when the recall of children was examined in detail, autistic children showed reduced phonological WM compared with control children. Moreover, phonological and visuospatial WM did not increase with the age of autistic children while a development of phonological and visuospatial WM with age was found in control children. The pattern of results is discussed in terms of previous studies about WM and autism.

Executive function predicts the visuospatial working memory in autism spectrum disorder and attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder

“…The VSWM was measured by the CBTT. The CBTT test was served as a popular neuropsychological assessment tool requiring the maintenance of spatial information (location sequences) and was widely used to test the VSWM or the spatial short‐term memory in ASD and ADHD [Macizo et al, ; Miyake, Friedman, Rettinger, Shah, & Hegarty, ; Zinke et al, ]. The CBTT test used two kinds of cards: one white (21 × 15 cm 2 ) background card with eight red squares (1.2 × 1.2 cm 2 ) dispersing on it, and one white background card with eight green squares on it.…”

“…The purpose of the current study was two‐folded: the first objective was to investigate the VSWM in ASD and ADHD, as compared with typically developed (TD) children; and the second objective was to investigate how the EF components predict VSWM in the above three groups. Specifically, VSWM was assessed by the Corsi Block Tapping Test (CBTT), which was widely used in previous studies [Geurts, Verté, Oosterlaan, Roeyers, & Sergeant, ; Macizo, Soriano, & Paredes, ; Pellicano & Purves, ]; and EF was measured by the WCST, which was regarded as “the gold standard of EF task” and as a highly sensitive indicator for cognitive flexibility, planning, and set maintenance [Ozonoff, Goodlinjones, & Solomon, ; Westwood, Stahl, Mandy, & Tchanturia, ]. We hypothesized that compared with TD children, the VSWM in ASD were disrupted; and the EF showed different contribution to VSWM deficits in ASD and ADHD, respectively.…”

Visual memory profile in children with high functioning autism

“…Typically, the literature considers spatial span tasks, such as the Corsi block-tapping test (see, e.g., Macizo, Soriano, & Paredes, 2016) or the Finger Windows task (Williams, Goldstein, Carpenter, & Minshew, 2005b), as VSWM measurements. Spatial memory, more than visual working memory, was found to be compromised in populations with ASD (see, e.g., Funabiki & Shiwa, 2018;Williams et al, 2005a).…”

Effects of Auditory Training and Remote Microphone Technology on the Behavioral Performance of Children and Young Adults Who Have Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…When considering the specific areas of improvement and areas that did not improve, several noteworthy findings were considered. First, when considering all of the areas that improved on the TAPS-3 (phonological segmentation and blending; number and word memory; and auditory reasoning) and the binaural integration tasks (DWT and RDDT), it is evident that each of these tests and subtests required verbal and auditory working memory for various stimuli, areas in which those with ASD struggle when compared with neurotypical peers (Macizo et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2017;Vogan et al, 2018). As a result, completion of the APT program addressed a significant deficit area for children with ASD.…”