Cognitive flexibility (CF) is the ability to shift between concepts or rules. Difficulty with CF is associated with autism (i.e., ASD) as it contributes to repetitive behaviours. However, little is known about CF skills of autistic adolescents with low intelligence. This study uses the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) to assess the CF of 36…

Background: Executive functions (EF) impairments have long been observed in children and youths with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Until very recently, little attention has been paid to examine EF profiles of adults with ASD. Given the importance of EF to cope with the demands of daily life and participate in society (e.g. maintaining an…

This research aims to evaluate the predicting role of executive functions, specially inhibition and flexibility, in reading comprehension. Participants were evaluated with inhibition and flexibility measures in first- grade, and later in third- grade their reading comprehension, oral and silent reading fluency, as well as their decoding skills…

This study examined the longitudinal associations of various executive function components with subsequent psychiatric problems in Chinese school-age children. Data from 1,639 children (44.36% girls) ages 6-13 years were drawn from the Children School Functions and Brain Development project. Executive function components were assessed by the…

Mathematical problems can be divided into two types, namely, process-open and process-constrained problems. Solving these two types of problems may require different cognitive mechanisms. However, there has been only one study that investigated the differences of the cognitive abilities in process-open and process-constrained problem solving, and…

The present study aims to examine the contribution of cognitive flexibility to metalinguistic skills and reading comprehension during primary school years. Forty-nine third-grade primary school children completed the measures of cognitive flexibility, metalinguistic skills including syntactic awareness (word order knowledge), morphosyntactic skill…

Objectives: The aim of the study is to distinguish between perceptuomotor and cognitive inflexibility as the source of set-switching difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: Seventeen adolescents with ASD and 17 neurotypical controls were presented with a computerized sequencing game using colored shapes. The sequence…

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the ability to make inferences about mental states. Thus far, little research has examined ToM development in middle childhood. Importantly, recent studies have distinguished between making inferences about beliefs (cognitive ToM) and emotions (affective ToM). ToM has also been associated with executive functioning,…

The complicated cognitive processes involved in natural (primary) bilingualism lead to significant cognitive development. Executive functions as a fundamental component of human cognition are deemed to be affected by language learning. To date, a large number of studies have investigated how natural (primary) bilingualism influences executive…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by profound difficulties in empathic processing and executive control. Whilst the links between these processes have been frequently investigated in populations with autism, few studies have examined them at the subclinical level. In addition, the contribution of alexithymia, a trait characterised by…

Background: The ability to generate and flexibly change concepts is of great importance for the development of academic and adaptive skills. This paper analyses the conceptual reasoning ability of children with mild intellectual disability (MID) by their achievements on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Method: The sample consisted of 95…

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) is the only cognitive flexibility task that has consistently shown deficits in individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As this is the only task characterized by limited explicit task instructions and a high degree of disengagement required to perform the switch, we hypothesized that cognitive…

More than 20?years ago, Minshew and colleagues proposed the Complex Information Processing model of autism in which the impairment is characterized as a generalized deficit involving multiple modalities and cognitive domains that depend on distributed cortical systems responsible for higher order abilities. Subsequent behavioral work revealed a…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the executive functions measured by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) between children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and age-matched normal controls. A second purpose was to examine the relations between executive functions and school functions in DCD children.…

The ability to adapt behavior in a changing environment is necessary for humans to achieve their goals and can be measured in the lab with tests of rule-based switching. Disease models, such as cocaine addiction, have revealed that alterations in dopamine interfere with adaptive set switching, culminating in perseveration. We explore perseverative…