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Towards a Cognitive Phenotype for Autism: Increased Prevalence of Executive Dysfunction and Superior Spatial Span amongst Siblings of Children with Autism
Author(s) -
Hughes Claire,
Plumet MarieHélène,
Leboyer Marion
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/1469-7610.00487
Subject(s) - autism , psychology , working memory , cambridge neuropsychological test automated battery , verbal fluency test , memory span , cognition , sibling , spatial ability , executive functions , developmental psychology , recall , fluency , set (abstract data type) , task (project management) , spatial memory , developmental disorder , cognitive psychology , neuropsychology , psychiatry , mathematics education , management , computer science , economics , programming language
Two studies were conducted to examine executive function skills in siblings of children with autism. In Study 1, four computerised tasks (three executive tasks: the ID/ED set‐shifting task; a spatial working memory task; and the Tower of London planning task; and a control spatial span task) from the CANTAB battery were used to compare 31 siblings of children with autism with 32 siblings of children with developmental delay and 32 children from unaffected families. In Study 2, the two sibling groups were compared on two manually administered executive tasks (verbal fluency and list recall). As a group, autism siblings showed superior spatial and verbal span, but a greater than expected number performed poorly on the set‐shifting, planning, and verbal fluency tasks. There were no group differences in working memory performance. The implications of these findings for the broader phenotype of autism is discussed.