Spatial Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Superior, Impaired, or Just Intact?

Abstract

The profile of spatial ability is of interest across autism spectrum disorders (ASD) because of reported spatial strengths in ASD and due to the recent association of Asperger's syndrome with Nonverbal Learning Disability. Spatial functions were examined in relation to two cognitive theories in autism: the central coherence and executive function (EF) theories. Performance on spatial tasks, EFs, and global/local processing was compared in children with ASD and controls. While the ASD group had faster reaction times on the Embedded Figures task, spatial performance was intact, but not superior, on other tasks. There was no evidence for impairments in EF or in processing global/local information, therefore contradicting these two theories. The implications of these results for these two theories are discussed.

Visuo-Spatial Performance in Autism: A Meta-analysis

“…We tested whether the differences in IQ affected the results; while this was the case the effect was not strong enough to cause the large amount of heterogeneity. Edgin and Pennington (2005) suggested that age might play a role: they found a significant age by group interaction in their maze study. However, if age were a promising moderator we would see a systematic increase or decrease in the age-column from top to bottom in our tables, as they are ordered by effect size; but this is not the case.…”

“…For instance, tasks involving mazes (Caron et al 2004;Edgin and Pennington 2005;Pellicano et al 2006) test visuo-spatial skills in a more realistic and lifelike setting. All three studies using mazes showed typical performance for individuals with ASD, which speaks against a generalized visuo-spatial superiority in ASD across different types of tasks.…”

Exploring ‘The autisms’ at a cognitive level

“…For the IED task, we were primarily interested in a participant's ability to switch from intra-to extra-dimensional sets in line with previous IED studies (Edgin & Pennington, 2005;Goldberg et al, 2005;Happe, Booth, Charlton, & Hughes, 2006;Hughes, Russell, & Robbins, 1994;Ozonoff et al, 2004;Yerys et al, 2009), hence we only report errors at stage 8 of this task (no group differences were detected at any other stage). Spreen, 1969), a version which has not previously been used to assess local bias in individuals with ASD (see White & Saldana, 2011 for a recent review; cf.…”

Application of the Theory of Mind, Theory of Executive Functions and Weak Central Coherence Theory to Individuals with ASD

“…Some studies have detected a deficit in cognitive flexibility (Hughes et al, 1994;Ozonoff et al, 2004;Yerys et al, 2009), while others have detected no deficits at all (Edgin & Pennington, 2005;Goldberg et al, 2005;Corbett et al, 2009).…”

“…Studies have used different tools in the same sample of participants with conflicting results. Studies have also been divided into three categories based on their findings: studies that found a deficit in STM/WM in children with ASD (Nydén et al, 1999;Minshew & Goldstein, 2001;Goldberg et al, 2005;Verte et al, 2006;Steele, Minshew, Luna, & Sweeney, 2007;Corbett et al, 2009); studies that failed to detect any deficit (Rumsey & Hamburger, 1988;Ozonoff & Strayer, 2001;Edgin & Pennington, 2005;Happé et al, 2006;Chan et al, 2009), and those studies with mixed results (Prior & Hoffmann, 1990;Rumsey & Hamburger, 1990;Bennetto et al, 1996;Minshew et al, 1992;Williams, Goldstein, Carpenter, & Minshew, 2005;Alloway, Rajendran, & Archibald, 2009;Zinke et al, 2010) owing to an uneven performance across the trials. This has led some researchers to support the view that individuals with ASD present no deficits in memory and merely fail to use the appropriate storage strategies (Minshew et al, 1992;Bennetto et al, 1996).…”