RESUMEN
Youth with different developmental disorders might experience challenges when dealing with facial emotion recognition (FER). By comparing FER and related emotional and cognitive factors across developmental disorders, researchers can gain a better understanding of challenges and strengths associated with each condition. The aim of the present study was to investigate how social anxiety and executive functioning might underlie FER in youth with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and specific learning disorders (SLD). The study involved 263 children and adolescents between 8 and 16 years old divided into three groups matched for age, sex, and IQ: 60 (52 M) with ASD without intellectual disability, 63 (44 M) with SLD, and 140 (105 M) non-diagnosed. Participants completed an FER test, three executive functions' tasks (inhibition, updating, and set-shifting), and parents filled in a questionnaire reporting their children's social anxiety. Our results suggest that better FER was consistent with higher social anxiety and better updating skills in ASD, while with lower social anxiety in SLD. Clinical practice should focus on coping strategies in autistic youth who could feel anxiety when facing social cues, and on self-efficacy and social worries in SLD. Executive functioning should also be addressed to support social learning in autism.
RESUMEN
Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience higher levels of stress than parents of typically-developing (TD) children, due to differences in their children's emotional functioning. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the cognitive and practical demands on vulnerable populations and their families. The aim of this study was to examine parenting stress levels in parents of children ASD and TD children, considering the children's emotional functioning (i.e., anxiety and cognitive emotion regulation strategies), and stressful life events deriving from the COVID-19 pandemic. The study involved 64 parent-child dyads comprising children from 7 to 16 years old, divided into two groups: 32 (26 M) children and adolescents with ASD but no intellectual disability, and 32 (26 M) with typical development. Our results show that parents of children with ASD reported higher levels of stress, but factors relating to the child and the context had a different influence on parenting stress in the ASD and TD groups. The higher level of parenting stress in the ASD group seemed to relate more to the children's emotional characteristics, while the TD group was more affected by the unpredictable stressful events prompted by COVID-19. Families' mental health should be considered a core aspect of supporting parents having to deal with both their child's emotional adjustment and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Intelligence assessment in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often sparks debates about sex/gender differences. Specifically, the question arises whether girls exhibit lower performance on intelligence scales compared to boys. This meta-analysis examines nine studies (N=1105; 809 boys and 296 girls) to quantify sex/gender differences on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) in children with ASD, comparing their results to typically developing children. METHOD AND PROCEDURES: Random-effects meta-analyses on WISC indices and subtests were conducted to address the heterogeneity across effect sizes. Results for children with ASD were compared to those of typically developing children. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Findings revealed no significant differences in general intellectual functioning (full-scale IQ), verbal comprehension, working memory, or processing speed between boys and girls in children with ASD. Boys showed an advantage only in the perceptual reasoning index. At the subtest level, boys outperformed on certain tasks, while girls excelled in others. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The observed pattern of differences in the ASD population aligns quantitatively with those in typically developing populations. Differences, if present, are specific to certain indices rather than general intelligence. These insights contribute to a nuanced understanding of gender-related cognitive variations in the context of ASD.
RESUMEN
Nonverbal learning disability (NVLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in visuospatial processing but spared verbal competencies. Neurocognitive markers may provide confirmatory evidence for characterizing NVLD as a separate neurodevelopmental disorder. Visuospatial performance and high-density electroencephalography (EEG) were measured in 16 NLVD and in 16 typically developing (TD) children. Cortical source modeling was applied to assess resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) in spatial attention networks (dorsal (DAN) and ventral attention networks (VAN)) implicated in visuospatial abilities. A machine-learning approach was applied to investigate whether group membership could be predicted from rs-FC maps and if these connectivity patterns were predictive of visuospatial performance. Graph theoretical measures were applied to nodes inside each network. EEG rs-FC maps in the gamma and beta band differentiated children with and without NVLD, with increased but more diffuse and less efficient functional connections bilaterally in the NVLD group. While rs-FC of the left DAN in the gamma range predicted visuospatial scores for TD children, in the NVLD group rs-FC of the right DAN in the delta range predicted impaired visuospatial performance, confirming that NVLD is a disorder with a predominant dysfunction in right hemisphere connectivity patterns.
RESUMEN
Visuospatial organization abilities are closely related to other visuospatial processing skills, such as visuomotor coordination, perceptual abilities, mental rotation, and working memory (WM). One task that enables visuospatial organization abilities to be investigated is the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure test (ROCFT). When examining visuospatial functioning, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have proved capable of operating both locally and globally, depending on the sub-domain embraced, with a preference for a locally-oriented processing of visuospatial information. The present research aimed to establish whether different underlying visuospatial skills might account for performance in the ROCFT in children and adolescents with ASD, compared with typically developing (TD), by considering the role of local/global visuospatial processing. The study involved 39 participants who have ASD without intellectual disability, and 57 TD aged 8-16 years. The participants were administered tasks assessing visuospatial organization abilities, manual dexterity, visual perception, mental rotation, spatial-sequential, spatial-simultaneous WM, and visuospatial processing. Our results suggest that manual dexterity and visuospatial processing similarly explain performance in both groups, while differences in visuospatial WM account for the two groups' visuospatial organization abilities. Spatial-simultaneous WM predicted performance in copy and recall conditions in the TD group but not in the ASD group, while spatial-sequential WM only did so in the latter group, reinforcing the tendency of children with ASD towards local bias in the visuospatial organization domain. The implications of these findings are discussed. LAY SUMMARY: The visuospatial organization abilities of children and adolescents with and without autism were compared, considering their underlying visuospatial skills. Visuospatial organization impairments emerged for children with autism, who differed from typically developing children in the underlying visuospatial skills involved. Given the crucial role of visuospatial organization abilities in everyday life, our results could inspire practitioners to develop training interventions that take into account the strengths and weaknesses of individuals with autism.