title: Processing capacity in children and adolescents with pervasive developmental disorders.
abstract: This study sought to investigate whether the abnormally small P3 amplitudes observed in pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) are related to differences in processing capacity. PDD children and adolescents and their control groups participated in the study. Visual probe stimuli were presented during an auditory task with two levels of difficulty. Event-related potentials (ERP) were measured from 62 electrodes during task performance. All groups showed amplitude increases to auditory stimuli with increasing task load. Controls showed expected smaller P3 amplitudes to visual probes, whereas PDD subjects did not. The results suggest that autistic subjects show abnormal capacity allocation. Some of these abnormalities may dissolve over time, while others remain into adolescence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. m.r.hoeksma@pharm.uu.nl
authors.forename: Marco R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Hoeksma
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kemner
authors.forename: Marinus N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Verbaten
authors.forename: Herman
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: van Engeland
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004585:Electrooculography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012720:Severity of Illness Index