title: Impairments on "open-ended" executive function tests in autism.
abstract: The executive function (EF) theory of autism has received much support recently from a growing number of studies. However, executive impairments have not always been easy to identify consistently and so novel "ecologically valid" tests have been designed which tap into real-life scenarios that are relevant to and representative of everyday behavior. One characteristic of many of these tasks is that they present the participant with an "ill-structured" or "open-ended" situation. Here, we investigated the possibility that tasks with greater degrees of open-endedness might prove more sensitive to detecting executive impairment in autism. Forty-five children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were compared to 27 age- and IQ-matched control children on a range of cognitive tests of EF. Group differences were found on half of the tasks, with the greatest degree of impairment detected on the more open-ended tasks. The ASD group also performed more poorly on a simple control condition of a task. Detailed consideration of task performance suggested that the ASD group tended to create fewer spontaneous strategies and exhibit more idiosyncratic behavior, which particularly disadvantaged them on the more open-ended tasks. These kinds of behaviors have been reported in studies of neurological patients with frontal lobe involvement, prima facie suggesting a link between the scientific fields. However, we suggest that this behavior might equally result from a poor understanding of the implicit demands made by the experimenter in open-ended test situations, due to the socio-communicative difficulties of these children.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK. s.white@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Paul W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Burgess
authors.forename: Elisabeth L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Hill
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003147:Communication Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D014705:Verbal Behavior