TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial cognition in autism spectrum disorders
T2 - Superior, impaired, or just intact?
AU - Edgin, Jamie O.
AU - Pennington, Bruce F.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a National Research Service Award (NRSA) #1 F31 MH12704 awarded to the first author. We a very grateful to the families that participated in this study. In addition, we would like to thank Elizabeth Griffith and Sally Rogers and her staff for help with recruitment. Finally, we thank the members of the DS team at DU for their support and help with data collection.
PY - 2005/12
Y1 - 2005/12
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Asperger's syndrome
KW - Autism
KW - Central coherence
KW - Executive function
KW - Spatial cognition
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U2 - 10.1007/s10803-005-0020-y
DO - 10.1007/s10803-005-0020-y
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16328713
AN - SCOPUS:33645908787
SN - 0162-3257
VL - 35
SP - 729
EP - 745
JO - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
JF - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
IS - 6
ER -