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Visual memory and sustained attention impairment in youths with autism spectrum disorders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2015

Y.-L. Chien ,
S. S.-F. Gau ,
C.-Y. Shang ,
Y.-N. Chiu ,
W.-C. Tsai  and
Y.-Y Wu
Y.-L. Chien
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
S. S.-F. Gau*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan Department of Psychology, School of Occupational Therapy, Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, and Graduate Institute of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
C.-Y. Shang
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
Y.-N. Chiu
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
W.-C. Tsai
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
Y.-Y Wu
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital-Linkou Medical Center, Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan
*
*Address for correspondence: S. S.-F. Gau, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, no. 7, Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei 10002, Taiwan. (Email: gaushufe@ntu.edu.tw)
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Abstract

Background

An uneven neurocognitive profile is a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Studies focusing on the visual memory performance in ASD have shown controversial results. We investigated visual memory and sustained attention in youths with ASD and typically developing (TD) youths.

Method

We recruited 143 pairs of youths with ASD (males 93.7%; mean age 13.1, s.d. 3.5 years) and age- and sex-matched TD youths. The ASD group consisted of 67 youths with autistic disorder (autism) and 76 with Asperger's disorder (AS) based on the DSM-IV criteria. They were assessed using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery involving the visual memory [spatial recognition memory (SRM), delayed matching to sample (DMS), paired associates learning (PAL)] and sustained attention (rapid visual information processing; RVP).

Results

Youths with ASD performed significantly worse than TD youths on most of the tasks; the significance disappeared in the superior intelligence quotient (IQ) subgroup. The response latency on the tasks did not differ between the ASD and TD groups. Age had significant main effects on SRM, DMS, RVP and part of PAL tasks and had an interaction with diagnosis in DMS and RVP performance. There was no significant difference between autism and AS on visual tasks.

Conclusions

Our findings implied that youths with ASD had a wide range of visual memory and sustained attention impairment that was moderated by age and IQ, which supports temporal and frontal lobe dysfunction in ASD. The lack of difference between autism and AS implies that visual memory and sustained attention cannot distinguish these two ASD subtypes, which supports DSM-5 ASD criteria.

Keywords

Attentionautismautism spectrumneurocognitionvisual memory
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 45 , Issue 11 , August 2015 , pp. 2263 - 2273
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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