The Effect of Comorbid with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms on Face Encoding and Retrieving in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

BackgroundVisuospatial working memory (VSWM) impairments were common in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, the detailed processing characteristics when facing face stimuli has not been studied. The present study aimed to explore the deficits of face encoding and retrieving, two processing periods of VSWM, in children with ASD. Furthermore, the influence of comorbid with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms and executive function (EF) on VSWM were discussed.MethodsA sample of 98 children were analyzed in the present study including ASD- (ASD-only, n = 24), ADHD (n = 23), ASD+ (with ADHD symptoms, n = 23) and neurotypical controls (NTC, n = 28). Social Responsive Scale (SRS) and Swanson, Nolan, Pelham-IV rating scales (SNAP-IV) were applied to measure autistic and ADHD-related symptoms. We employed face encoding and retrieving task to examine the ability of VSWM as well as Wisconsin Cart Sorting Test (WCST) to assess the EF.ResultsWe found that the children with ASD- exhibited lower accuracy in both face encoding and retrieving, while subjects with ASD + showed lower accuracy in the face retrieving. No evidence implied a deficit of VSWM in ADHD group. We also found diverse indices of EF contributed to the individuals’ differences of VSWM performance in different clinical groups: categories completed (CC) predicted the accuracy of face retrieving in ASD- group; perseverative responses errors (RPE) predicted the response time (RT) of face retrieving in ADHD and ASD + group; while failure to maintain set (FMS) and RPE predicted the RT of face encoding in ASD + group.LimitationsThe sample size is still small and the sample mainly comprised of intellectually able participants. Therefore, our findings should not be overinterpreted.ConclusionOur findings indicate that comorbid with ADHD symptoms and EF may modulate the deficit of face encoding in children with ASD. The study shed lights on the transdiagnostic neurocognitive basis and re-emphasize the importance of considering ADHD-comorbid condition in ASD.Qi Chen and Zengjian Wang contributed equally to this work as the joint first authors.