Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often excel on visual search and crowding tasks; however, inconsistent findings suggest that this 'islet of ability' may not be characteristic of the entire spectrum. We examined whether performance on these tasks changed as a function of motor proficiency in children with varying levels of ASD…

Perceptual processing in autism is associated with both "strengths" and "weaknesses" but within a literature that varies widely in terms of the assessments used. We report data from 12 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 12 age and IQ matched neurotypical controls tested on a set of tasks using the same stimuli…

Subjects with PDD excel on certain visuo-spatial tasks, amongst which visual search tasks, and this has been attributed to enhanced perceptual discrimination. However, an alternative explanation is that subjects with PDD show a different, more effective search strategy. The present study aimed to test both hypotheses, by measuring eye movements…

Global-local processing was examined in high-functioning children with autism and in groups of typically developing children. In experiment 1, the effects of structural bias were tested by comparing visual search that favored access to either local or global targets. The children with autism were not unusually sensitive to either level of visual…