A Study of Memory Functioning in Individuals with Autism

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Also: * Executive Functioning In High-Functioning Children With Autism

* Development and Current Functioning In Adolescents

With Asperger Syndrome

* The " Reading the Mind in the Eyes " Test Revised Version

* Syndrome Detector

* New Jersey Walkathon For Autism Research

A Study of Memory Functioning in Individuals with Autism

[Thanks again to Decelie for these abstracts.]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11280421 & dopt=Abstract

1: J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2001 Feb;42(2):253-60 Books

Mottron L, Morasse K, Belleville S

Clinique specialisee des Troubles Envahissants du Developpement, H pital

Riviere-des-Prairies, Montreal, Canada. mottronl@...

Memory tasks were administered to 14 high-functioning individuals with

autism and 14 typically developing individuals matched on chronological age

and verbal intelligence. The tasks consisted of free and cued recall of 15

semantically unrelated words in 3 encoding conditions: phonological

encoding, semantic encoding, and a no encoding orientation.

In both groups, semantic orientation led to better free recall than

did orientation toward syllabic encoding or absence of orientation. In

contrast, semantic cues at retrieval led to better cued recall than

phonological cues in typically developing individuals, whereas both types of

cue had the same effect in prompting cued recall for individuals with

autism.

These findings are incompatible with the hypothesis of an amnesic

deficit and do not support the notion of executive or semantic deficits in

the memory problems of autistic individuals, at least for those with a high

level of functioning.

It is proposed that these findings can be accounted for by enhanced

phono logical processing in autism. This interpretation is consistent with

other findings of enhanced processing of low-level perceptual information in

the visual and auditory modality in autism.

PMID: 11280421

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Executive Functioning In High-Functioning Children With Autism

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11280422 & dopt=Abstract

1: J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2001 Feb;42(2):261-70 Books

Liss M, Fein D, D, Dunn M, Feinstein C, R, Waterhouse L, Rapin

I

University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA.

Executive functioning was investigated in 34 children (24 boys and 10

girls) with developmental language disorder (DLD) and 21 children (18 boys

and 3 girls) with high-functioning autistic disorder (HAD) matched on Full

Scale IQ, Nonverbal IQ, age (mean age 9 year, 1 month), and SES.

The DLD group had a Verbal IQ that was 10 points higher than the HAD

group. These children were given the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), the

Mazes subtest from the WISC-R, the Underlining test, and the Rapid

Automatized Naming test.

In addition, these children were given the Vineland Scales of Adaptive

Functioning and the Wing Diagnostic Symptom Checklist in order to assess

severity of autistic symptomatology. Results indicated that the only

significant difference between the two groups on the cognitive tasks was

perseverative errors on the WCST; there was no significant difference on

total number of categories achieved or total number of errors on the WCST or

on the other executive function measures.

There was also significant overlap in the scores between the two

groups and the difference in perseverative errors was no longer significant

when Verbal IQ was partialed out. Executive functioning was strongly related

to all IQ variables in the DLD group and particularly related to Verbal IQ

in the HAD group.

Although there was a relationship in the HAD group between executive

functioning and adaptive functioning, as well as between executive

functioning and autistic symptomatology, these relationships were generally

no longer significant in the HAD group after the variance due to Verbal IQ

was accounted for.

The results are interpreted to indicate that although impaired

executive functioning is a commonly associated feature of autism, it is not

universal in autism and is unlikely to cause autistic behaviors or deficits

in adaptive function.

PMID: 11280422

* * *

Development and Current Functioning In Adolescents With Asperger Syndrome

A comparative study

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11280419 & dopt=Abstract

1: J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2001 Feb;42(2):227-40 Books

Gilchrist A, Green J, A, Burton D, Rutter M, Le Couteur A

Young People's Department, Royal Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen, UK.

Anne.Gilchrist@...

Adolescents with Asperger syndrome (AS: without delay in speech

development, diagnosed according to ICD-10 clinical criteria) were compared

with a group with high-functioning autism (HFA: all with delayed speech

development), and a group with conduct disorder (CD).

Family and genetic studies suggest that Asperger syndrome and autism

form part of the same spectrum, whereas the social impairments in conduct

disorder are assumed to have different origins. The aims were to explore the

relationships between early speech development and other aspects of

functioning in autistic disorders, and to compare autistic and nonautistic

social impairments. Early and current behaviour and IQ profiles were

investigated.

The CD group were clearly different from both the AS and HFA groups.

The AS group tended to have less severe early behavioural abnormalities than

the HFA group, and were unlikely to have speech abnormalities, but other

communicative, social, and restricted/ stereotyped behavioural difficulties

were largely of a similar pattern to the abnormalities in the HFA group.

Eighty per cent of the AS group met criteria for autism on the

diagnostic algorithm associated with the Autism Diagnostic

Interview-Revised. By adolescence, the AS group were reported to be as

abnormal as the HFA group but in structured 1:1 interaction their

conversation was better.

IQ profile in the AS group showed relative strength on verbal

measures, unlike the HFA group, but relatively good performance on the Block

Design subtest of the WISC/WAIS was a feature of both the AS and HFA groups.

The results indicate closely similar behavioural manifestations may arise by

adolescence despite differences in speech development.

Follow-up studies and further family investigations will be required

to clarify the origins of these and other patterns of autistic development.

PMID: 11280419

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* * *

The " Reading the Mind in the Eyes " Test Revised Version

A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or

high-functioning autism

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11280420 & dopt=Abstract

1: J Child Psychol Psychiatry 2001 Feb;42(2):241-51 Books

Baron-Cohen S, Wheelwright S, Hill J, Raste Y, Plumb I

Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK.

SB205@...

In 1997 in this Journal we published the " Reading the Mind in the

Eyes " Test, as a measure of adult " mentalising " .

Whilst that test succeeded in discriminating a group of adults with

Asperger syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) from controls, it

suffered from several psychometric problems. In this paper these limitations

are rectified by revising the test.

The Revised Eyes Test was administered to a group of adults with AS or

HFA (N = 15) and again discriminated these from a large number of normal

controls (N = 239) drawn from different samples. In both the clinical and

control groups the Eyes Test was inversely correlated with the Autism

Spectrum Quotient (the AQ), a measure of autistic traits in adults of normal

intelligence.

The Revised Eyes Test has improved power to detect subtle individual

differences in social sensitivity.

PMID: 11280420

* * *

Syndrome Detector

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve & db=PubMed & list_ui

ds=11253493 & dopt=Abstract

1: Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 2001 Mar 3;145(9):396-400 Related Articles, Books

[No title available].

[Article in Dutch]

van Hagen JM, Govaerts LC, de Coo IF, Gille JJ, Nieuwint AW, Madan K

VU Medisch Centrum, afd. Klinische Genetica en Antropogenetica, Postbus

7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam. a.vanhagen@...

syndrome (WS) is a developmental disorder characterized by

distinct facial features, congenital heart disease, mental retardation and a

gregarious personality.

The majority of people with this disorder have a submicroscopic

deletion of genes in chromosome band 7q11.23. This deletion can be detected

using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Although the condition is

usually sporadic a few familial cases with autosomal dominant inheritance

have been described.

A clinical scoring system has been developed by Selicorni with which a

diagnosis of ' syndrome' can be made; in all patients in whom the

diagnosis was made in this way FISH results were positive.

PMID: 11253493

* * *

New Jersey Walkathon For Autism Research

Approximately 500,000 Americans, l8,000 of whom live here in New

Jersey, have autism. Family and friends of those affected by autism will

gather at Overpeck Park in Leonia, Bergen County, NJ on June l0, 2001 for

the first Northern New Jersey " Walk F.A.R. for NAAR " , (Family and Friends

for Autism Research). The National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR)

sponsors this family event with entertainment, activities, and refreshments.

Check in will be at 1:00 p.m. The 3-mile walk begins at 2:00 p.m.

Once thought to be rare, the prevalence of autism is known to be more

common than cystic fibrosis or multiple sclerosis. One in 500 children has

autism. Nevertheless, autism receives significantly less funding for

research than these other diseases. NAAR is the first national nonprofit

organization in the US dedicated to accelerating autism biomedical research.

NAAR has funded over 75 researchers at leading medical schools and

universities throughout the world to engage in promising research projects.

Last year, the first Central New Jersey " Walk F.A.R. for NAAR "

attracted 2500 participants and raised $360,000. Because of the

overwhelming show of public support, National Alliance for Autism Research

looks to the future optimistically. beth Rothman of Tenafly and

DeMauro of Bergenfield are co-chairing this Northern N.J. walkathon.

For information specific to the Northern NJ " Walk F.A.R. for NAAR

Walkathon " call (20l) 569-96l0 or visit www.autismwalk.org.

For information on the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR)

call

1-888-777-NAAR or visit www.naar.org

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_NLOCKING A_TISM'S

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CONFERENCE AND RALLY

WASHINGTON D.C. APRIL 25-27, 2001

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Go to our website: www.unlockingautism.org

and register TODAY!!!

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Lenny Schafer, Editor PhD Ron Sleith Kay Stammers

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