There is evidence that autistic children may have reduced executive function skills, contributing to day-to-day difficulties, but much remains unknown regarding the influence of bilingualism. We investigated its influence on sustained attention, interference control, flexible switching and working memory, in Arabic-English autistic (n = 27)…

Stress and anxiety have a negative impact on working memory systems by competing for executive resources and attention. Broad memory deficits, anxiety, and elevated stress have been reported in individuals with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS). We investigated anxiety and physiological stress reactivity in relation to visuospatial…

A novel battery (BAFE; Valeri et al. 2015) was used in order to assess three executive function (EF) abilities (working memory, inhibition and shifting) in a sample of 27 intellectually able preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with 27 typically developing children matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Differences in EF skills were…

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…

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a disruption in the flow of thought and a common feature in psychotic disorders and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Executive dysfunction has often been associated with FTD, yet for ASD convincing evidence is lacking. This study investigated FTD and three core executive functions in 50 young children and…

This study examined Chinese character recognition and its cognitive and linguistic correlates in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Forty-seven children with ASD and 51 IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children were tested on Chinese character recognition, rapid automatized naming, inhibitory control, digit span, IQ,…

There has been an increasing interest in possible connections between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia in the last decade. Neuropsychological comparison studies have, however, been few. The present study examined similarities and differences in intellectual and executive functioning between adults with Asperger syndrome (AS) and…

Despite evidence supporting the presence of cognitive deficits in children and adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD), the nature of these deficits and their clinical and adaptive correlates remain unclear. Moreover, there are few cognitive studies of ASD siblings as a high risk population. We compared 50 children and…

The present study examined whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are able to update and monitor working memory representations of visual input, and whether performance is influenced by stimulus and task complexity. 15 high-functioning adults with ASD and 15 controls were asked to allocate either elements of abstract figures or…

This study broadly examines executive (EF) and visuo-motor function in 30 adolescent and adult individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in comparison to 28 controls matched for age, gender, and IQ. ASD individuals showed impaired spatial working memory, whereas planning, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition were spared.…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) show daily cognitive flexibility deficits, but laboratory data are unconvincing. The current study aimed to bridge this gap. Thirty-one children with ASD (8-12 years) and 31 age- and IQ-matched typically developing children performed a gender emotion switch task. Unannounced switches and complex…

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) succeed at a range of musical tasks. The ability to recognize musical emotion as belonging to one of four categories (happy, sad, scared or peaceful) was assessed in high-functioning adolescents with ASD (N = 26) and adolescents with typical development (TD, N = 26) with comparable performance IQ,…

Cognitive autism research is mainly focusing on children and young adults even though we know that autism is a life-long disorder and that healthy aging already has a strong impact on cognitive functioning. We compared the neuropsychological profile of 23 individuals with autism and 23 healthy controls (age range 51-83 years). Deficits were…

In this study, the relationship between gesture recognition and imitation was explored. Nineteen individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) were compared to a control group of 23 typically developing children on their ability to imitate and recognize three gesture types (transitive, intransitive, and pantomimes). The ASD group performed more…

Using a battery of working memory span tasks and n-back tasks, this study aimed to explore working memory functions in early-school-age children with Asperger's syndrome (AS). Twelve children with AS and 29 healthy children matched on age and IQ were recruited. Results showed: (a) children with AS performed better in digit and word recall tasks,…