TITLE:
Non-Verbal Cognitive Profile of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
AUTHORS:
Tatiana Pontrelli Mecca, Fernanda Tebexreni Orsati, Elizeu Coutinho de Macedo
KEYWORDS:
Autism Spectrum Disorders, Intelligence, Cognitive Profile, Nonverbal, Leiter-R
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.11,
August
25,
2014
ABSTRACT: The
literature shows that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate
a heterogeneous pattern of cognitive abilities, including nonverbal abilities.
However, there is a need for better cognitive characterization of this
population for both research and intervention purposes. The present study aims
to verify the Leiter-R performance profile for 40 children between the ages of
3 and 8 years old with ASD. The performance of the ASD children in each subtest
and their total scores were compared to those of a control group of typically
developing children, and intragroup analysis was conducted to verify the
strengths and weaknesses of the children with ASD. The results show that
individuals with ASD have difficulties with abstract reasoning related to fluid
intelligence as well as selective attention and inhibition. Conversely, their
visuo-spatial abilities are their strength. Cluster and comparative intra-group
analyses indicate that nonverbal cognitive abilities are heterogeneous among
the individuals within the ASD group. Performance in nonverbal tasks is positively
correlated with adaptive functioning in communication and daily skills domains
and inversely correlated with symptom severity as measured by the Autism
Behavior Checklist. These results corroborate the literature associating
cognition and functionality in ASD.