TITLE:
Assessing Cognitive Flexibility, Communication, Social Interaction and Interest Patterns of Persons with Autism as a Basis for Intervention
AUTHORS:
Cristina de Andrade Varanda, Fernanda Dreux Miranda Fernandes
KEYWORDS:
Autism, Executive Function, Cognition, Autistic Disorder
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.6 No.4,
March
11,
2015
ABSTRACT: The prevalence of people on the autism spectrum can vary from 1% to 1.5%
of the population, nowadays. Besides an adequate diagnosis, specialized
treatment offered to these people must be a priority for the public health
policies and a target of interest for researchers and health professionals.
Autism is characterized by the presence of deficits in communication, social
interaction and patterns of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. One
of the theories that explain autism points out to disorders in some higher
order functions such as failures in cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control
and working memory. In this study, 18 persons with autism were assessed in the areas of
non-verbal intelligence, cognitive flexibility besides the affected areas in
autism: communication, social interaction and patterns of interests and behavior.
The aim was to verify if there was a correlation between failures in cognitive
flexibility and the main impairments of the autism spectrum. Raven’s
Progressive Matrices, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test—WCST and Autism Diagnostic
Interview-Revised—ADI-R were used. Although correlation between WCST and ADI-R
scores did not reach conventional statistical significance on most categories,
the category failure to maintain set (FMS) in WCST and difficulties in social
interaction in ADI-R were positively correlated with statistical significance.
This result indicates a deficit of focused attention related to the subjects’
inability to successfully perform or maintain a social interaction situation.
This would not support the idea that these subjects fail to flexibly shift
their focus of attention from one stimulus to the other in a social interaction
situation. On the contrary, it seems that they shift their focus of attention
constantly, once their inability to maintain set is positively correlated with
difficulties in social interaction. Nevertheless, further research with a
larger number of subjects is necessary in order to clarify if FMS assesses
distractibility or cognitive flexibility.