Differential neural correlates underlying visuospatial versus semantic reasoning in autistic children.

While fronto-posterior underconnectivity has often been reported in autism, it was shown that different contexts may modulate between-group differences in functional connectivity. Here, we assessed how different task paradigms modulate functional connectivity differences in a young autistic sample relative to typically developing children. Twenty-three autistic and 23 typically developing children aged 6 to 15 years underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning while completing a reasoning task with visuospatial versus semantic content. We observed distinct connectivity patterns in autistic versus typical children as a function of task type (visuospatial vs. semantic) and problem complexity (visual matching vs. reasoning), despite similar performance. For semantic reasoning problems, there was no significant between-group differences in connectivity. However, during visuospatial reasoning problems, we observed occipital-occipital, occipital-temporal, and occipital-frontal over-connectivity in autistic children relative to typical children. Also, increasing the complexity of visuospatial problems resulted in increased functional connectivity between occipital, posterior (temporal), and anterior (frontal) brain regions in autistic participants, more so than in typical children. Our results add to several studies now demonstrating that the connectivity alterations in autistic relative to neurotypical individuals are much more complex than previously thought and depend on both task type and task complexity and their respective underlying cognitive processes.

The effect of age on executive functions in adults is not sex specific.

OBJECTIVE: Numerous studies have shown a decrease in executive functions (EF) associated with aging. However, few investigations examined whether this decrease is similar between sexes throughout adulthood. The present study investigated if age-related decline in EF differs between men and women from early to late adulthood. METHODS: A total of 302 participants (181 women) aged between 18 and 78 years old completed four computer-based cognitive tasks at home: an arrow-based Flanker task, a letter-based Visual search task, the Trail Making Test, and the Corsi task. These tasks measured inhibition, attention, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, respectively. To investigate the potential effects of age, sex, and their interaction on specific EF and a global EF score, we divided the sample population into five age groups (i.e., 18-30, 31-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65-78) and conducted analyses of covariance (MANCOVA and ANCOVA) with education and pointing device as control variables. RESULTS: Sex did not significantly affect EF performance across age groups. However, in every task, participants from the three youngest groups (< 55 y/o) outperformed the ones from the two oldest. Results from the global score also suggest that an EF decrease is distinctly noticeable from 55 years old onward. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that age-related decline in EF, including inhibition, attention, cognitive flexibility, and working memory, becomes apparent around the age of 55 and does not differ between sexes at any age. This study provides additional data regarding the effects of age and sex on EF across adulthood, filling a significant gap in the existing literature.

Different levels of visuospatial abilities linked to differential brain correlates underlying visual mental segmentation processes in autism.

The neural underpinnings of enhanced locally oriented visual processing that are specific to autistics with a Wechsler's Block Design (BD) peak are largely unknown. Here, we investigated the brain correlates underlying visual segmentation associated with the well-established autistic superior visuospatial abilities in distinct subgroups using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This study included 31 male autistic adults (15 with (AUTp) and 16 without (AUTnp) a BD peak) and 28 male adults with typical development (TYP). Participants completed a computerized adapted BD task with models having low and high perceptual cohesiveness (PC). Despite similar behavioral performances, AUTp and AUTnp showed generally higher occipital activation compared with TYP participants. Compared with both AUTnp and TYP participants, the AUTp group showed enhanced task-related functional connectivity within posterior visuoperceptual regions and decreased functional connectivity between frontal and occipital-temporal regions. A diminished modulation in frontal and parietal regions in response to increased PC was also found in AUTp participants, suggesting heavier reliance on low-level processing of global figures. This study demonstrates that enhanced visual functioning is specific to a cognitive phenotypic subgroup of autistics with superior visuospatial abilities and reinforces the need to address autistic heterogeneity by good cognitive characterization of samples in future studies.

A convergent structure-function substrate of cognitive imbalances in autism.

BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental diagnosis showing substantial phenotypic heterogeneity. A leading example can be found in verbal and nonverbal cognitive skills, which vary from elevated to impaired compared with neurotypical individuals. Moreover, deficits in verbal profiles often coexist with normal or superior performance in the nonverbal domain. METHODS: To study brain substrates underlying cognitive imbalance in ASD, we capitalized categorical and dimensional IQ profiling as well as multimodal neuroimaging. RESULTS: IQ analyses revealed a marked verbal to nonverbal IQ imbalance in ASD across 2 datasets (Dataset-1: 155 ASD, 151 controls; Dataset-2: 270 ASD, 490 controls). Neuroimaging analysis in Dataset-1 revealed a structure-function substrate of cognitive imbalance, characterized by atypical cortical thickening and altered functional integration of language networks alongside sensory and higher cognitive areas. CONCLUSION: Although verbal and nonverbal intelligence have been considered as specifiers unrelated to autism diagnosis, our results indicate that intelligence disparities are accentuated in ASD and reflected by a consistent structure-function substrate affecting multiple brain networks. Our findings motivate the incorporation of cognitive imbalances in future autism research, which may help to parse the phenotypic heterogeneity and inform intervention-oriented subtyping in ASD.

Sense of agency: Sensorimotor signals and social context are differentially weighed at implicit and explicit levels.

Sense of agency (SoA) describes the experience of being the author of an action. Cue integration approaches divide SoA into an implicit level, mostly relying on prospective sensorimotor signals, and an explicit level, resulting from an integration of sensorimotor and contextual cues based on their reliability. Integration mechanisms at each level and the contribution of implicit to explicit SoA remain underspecified. In a task of movements with visual outcomes, we tested the effect of social context (contextual cue) and sensory prediction congruency (retrospective sensorimotor cue) over implicit (intentional binding) and explicit (verbal judgments) SoA. Our results suggest that prospective sensorimotor cues determine implicit SoA. At the explicit level, retrospective sensorimotor cues and contextual cues are partly integrated in an additive way, but contextual cues can also act as a heuristic if sensorimotor cues are highly unreliable. We also found no significant association between implicit and explicit SoA.

[Social Cognition and the Sense of Agency in Autism: From Action to Interaction]. / Cognition sociale et sens de l'agentivité en autisme : de l'action à l'interaction.

The sense of agency (SoA) refers to the ability for one to detect that she is the cause of an action (Gallagher, 2000). The SoA is linked to motor control but also to self-awareness and could play an important role in social interactions. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by an alteration of social interactions and communication (DSM-5; APA, 2013) and is often seen as a primary deficit of functions specific to social cognition. However, motor control is also altered in ASD. We hypothesize that motor symptoms and social impairments could both arise from the same alteration of SoA. We first introduce theoretical models of implicit and explicit SoA (Synofzik et al., 2008) and present their neurofunctional basis. Then, we assess the clinical expressions of a disrupted SoA in different neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. In ASD, the atypical formation of internal models of action during motor acquisition (Haswell et al., 2009) could be at the source of an altered implicit SoA. A lack of fidelity of sensorimotor agency cues (Zalla et al., 2015) could also entail an alteration of explicit SoA. We discuss the main clinical expressions of ASD that may ensue from a disrupted SoA (difficulties in theory of mind and imitation, deficits in motor coordination and praxis, etc.).

Semantic and Visuospatial Fluid Reasoning in School-Aged Autistic Children.

In light of the known visuoperceptual strengths and altered language skills in autism, we investigated the impact of problem content (semantic/visuospatial) combined with complexity and presence of lures on fluid reasoning in 43 autistic and 41 typical children (6-13 years old). Increased complexity and presence of lures diminished performance, but less so as the children's age increased. Typical children were slightly more accurate overall, whereas autistic children were faster at solving complex visuospatial problems. Thus, reasoning could rely more extensively on visuospatial strategies in autistic versus typical children. A combined speed-accuracy measure revealed similar performance in both groups, suggesting a similar pace in fluid reasoning development. Visual presentation of conceptual information seems to suit the reasoning processes of autistic children.

Visual abilities and exploration behaviors as predictors of intelligence in autistic children from preschool to school age.

LAY ABSTRACT: At the time of diagnosis, parents of autistic children frequently wonder what the future holds for their children in terms of intellectual development. It remains however difficult to answer this question at such a young age. Indeed, while early precursors of intelligence are well known for children following a typical development, these precursors remain to be identified for autistic children. Some theoretical models of intelligence suggest that perceptual abilities or behaviors, as seen early in autistic cognitive development, could be early indicators of intelligence. However, research examining the relation between early perceptual predictors and autistic intelligence over time is needed. This article is the first to consider a variety of early perceptual abilities and behaviors as precursors/predictors of intelligence at school age in autistic children. We showed that better performance in perceptual tasks at preschool age predicted better intellectual abilities measured later in autistic children. Importantly, our sample of autistic children represented the whole spectrum, including children with few to no spoken words, who are an important proportion of autistic preschoolers. While early perceptual abilities and behaviors may not substitute for a formal intellectual assessment, our results support that these indices may help estimate later intellectual level in autistic children. Perceptual abilities have the advantage to be easy to observe at preschool age and seem to fit the cognitive style of autistic children. Assessment methods could probably gain from including and focusing more on the perceptual strengths of autistic children.

Enhanced visual functioning in autism: an ALE meta-analysis.

Autistics often exhibit enhanced perceptual abilities when engaged in visual search, visual discrimination, and embedded figure detection. In similar fashion, while performing a range of perceptual or cognitive tasks, autistics display stronger physiological engagement of the visual system than do non-autistics. To account for these findings, the Enhanced Perceptual Functioning Model proposes that enhanced autistic performance in basic perceptual tasks results from stronger engagement of sensory processing mechanisms, a situation that may facilitate an atypically prominent role for perceptual mechanisms in supporting cognition. Using quantitative meta-analysis of published functional imaging studies from which Activation Likelihood Estimation maps were computed, we asked whether autism is associated with enhanced task-related activity for a broad range of visual tasks. To determine whether atypical engagement of visual processing is a general or domain-specific phenomenon, we examined three different visual processing domains: faces, objects, and words. Overall, we observed more activity in autistics compared to non-autistics in temporal, occipital, and parietal regions. In contrast, autistics exhibited less activity in frontal cortex. The spatial distribution of the observed differential between-group patterns varied across processing domains. Autism may be characterized by enhanced functional resource allocation in regions associated with visual processing and expertise. Atypical adult organizational patterns may reflect underlying differences in developmental neural plasticity that can result in aspects of the autistic phenotype, including enhanced visual skills, atypical face processing, and hyperlexia.

Experience of Autistic Children and Their Families During the Pandemic: From Distress to Coping Strategies.

To understand the perspectives and needs of autistic children and their families in the context of an emergency, 109 parents and 56 autistic children (5.75-18 years) from Canada completed an online survey about needs, barriers and facilitators to coping with the pandemic. Parents' concerns about their child's development and difficulties managing their child's behaviors before and during pandemic were significantly associated. Parents identified maintaining social relationships and implementing appropriate interventions to their child's characteristics as facilitators during the pandemic. Both children and parents identified lack of socialization as a main difficulty. Among children, 92.9% associated electronic devices with their well-being. This study highlighted the need to consider the child's autistic characteristics and interests to implement emergency accommodations and services.

Assessing global developmental delay across instruments in minimally verbal preschool autistic children: The importance of a multi-method and multi-informant approach.

Intellectual assessment in preschool autistic children bears many challenges, particularly for those who have lower language and/or cognitive abilities. These challenges often result in underestimation of their potential or exclusion from research studies. Understanding how different instruments and definitions used to identify autistic preschool children with global developmental delay (GDD) affect sample composition is critical to advance research on this understudied clinical population. This study set out to examine the extent to which using different instruments to define GDD affects sample composition and whether different definitions affect resultant cognitive and adaptive profiles. Data from the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-Second Edition, a parent-report tool, were analyzed in a sample of 64 autistic and 73 neurotypical children (28-69 months). Our results highlight that cognitive assessment alone should not be used in clinical or research practices to infer a comorbid diagnosis of GDD, as it might lead to underestimating autistic children's potential. Instead, using both adaptive and cognitive levels as a stratification method to create subgroups of children with and without GDD might be a promising approach to adequately differentiate them, with less risk of underestimating them.

Differential neural correlates underlying mental rotation processes in two distinct cognitive profiles in autism.

Enhanced visuospatial abilities characterize the cognitive profile of a subgroup of autistics. However, the neural correlates underlying such cognitive strengths are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the neural underpinnings of superior visuospatial functioning in different autistic subgroups. Twenty-seven autistic adults, including 13 with a Wechsler's Block Design peak (AUTp) and 14 without (AUTnp), and 23 typically developed adults (TYP) performed a classic mental rotation task. As expected, AUTp participants were faster at the task compared to TYP. At the neural level, AUTp participants showed enhanced bilateral parietal and occipital activation, stronger occipito-parietal and fronto-occipital connectivity, and diminished fronto-parietal connectivity compared to TYP. On the other hand, AUTnp participants presented greater activation in right and anterior regions compared to AUTp. In addition, reduced connectivity between occipital and parietal regions was observed in AUTnp compared to AUTp and TYP participants. A greater reliance on posterior regions is typically reported in the autism literature. Our results suggest that this commonly reported finding may be specific to a subgroup of autistic individuals with enhanced visuospatial functioning. Moreover, this study demonstrated that increased occipito-frontal synchronization was associated with superior visuospatial abilities in autism. This finding contradicts the long-range under-connectivity hypothesis in autism. Finally, given the relationship between distinct cognitive profiles in autism and our observed differences in brain functioning, future studies should provide an adequate characterization of the autistic subgroups in their research. The main limitations are small sample sizes and the inclusion of male-only participants.

Category learning in autism: Are some situations better than others?

Autism is diagnosed according to atypical social-communication and repetitive behaviors. However, autistic individuals are also distinctive in the high variability of specific abilities such as learning. Having been characterized as experiencing great difficulty with learning, autistics have also been reported to learn spontaneously in exceptional ways. These contrasting accounts suggest that some situations may be better than others for learning in autism. We tested this possibility using a probabilistic category learning task with four learning situations differing either in feedback intensity or information presentation. Two learning situations compared high- versus low-intensity feedback, while two other learning situations without external feedback compared isolated sequentially presented information versus arrays of simultaneously presented information. We assessed the categorization and generalization performance of 54 autistic and 52 age-matched typical school-age children after they learned in different situations. We found that children in both groups were able to learn and generalize novel probabilistic categories in all four learning situations. However, across and within groups, autistic children were advantaged by simultaneously presented information while typical children were advantaged by high-intensity feedback when learning. These findings question some common aspects of autism interventions (e.g., frequent intense feedback, minimized simplified information), and underline the importance of improving our current understanding of how and when autistics learn optimally. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Sociocultural context and autistics' quality of life: A comparison between Québec and France.

LAY ABSTRACT: What is already known about the topic? Quality of life refers to how people perceive aspects of their life such as physical health, material security, and interpersonal relationships. Studies have reported lower quality of life among autistic individuals than in the general population.What does this article contribute? This article contributes to a better understanding of quality of life and its measures from the point of view of autistic adults. By comparing two groups of French-speaking autistic adults from two different places (France and Québec-Canada), this research shows that the perception of quality of life and its determining factors differ for autistic adults living in each country. The Québec group reported a superior quality of life, and some quality of life predictors were different in each group. The social experience of autism-related stigmatization, however, was a powerful predictor of quality of life for all.Implications for practice, research, and policy To promote a higher quality of life for autistic people, it is important to consider the sociocultural context and implement awareness programs and public campaigns aimed at identifying and countering stigmatization processes.

Thinking in pictures in everyday life situations among autistic adults.

Autistic individuals are often described as thinking in pictures. The aim of this study was to investigate the phenomenological characteristics of mental representations and inner experiences of autistic individuals. A total of 39 autistic adults and 80 control adults answered an online questionnaire. Autistic participants reported a more frequent use of visual mental representations than controls for different types of everyday situations. Moreover, autistic individuals defined their visual mental representations as more detailed than control participants. Furthermore, when describing their inner experiences, autistic participants used perceptive visual themes whereas control participants relied more on the description of events and memories. Our results support the hypothesis that some autistic individuals indeed "think in pictures". We discuss the impact of such a visual way of thinking in daily life.

Superior estimation abilities in two autistic spectrum children.

Anecdotal reports of superior estimation abilities in autistic individuals (e.g., Sacks, 1985) have never been confirmed empirically. We present here case studies of 2 children with autistic spectrum diagnoses and report remarkable abilities in estimation for several quantifiable dimensions. K.T. and G.T. were tested at 9 years of age for estimation of rank, numerosity, time, weight, length, surface, distance, and precise enumeration for small numbers. Their performances were compared to those of 6 age- and IQ- matched comparison children. K.T. demonstrated a superior level of performance in estimating rank (e.g., which set has larger numerosity?) but his performance in other tasks was average. G.T. displayed outstanding performance in estimating numerosity, time, weight, surface, length, and distance, with average performance in other tasks. These results show that certain autistic spectrum individuals may develop superior and highly specialized abilities in estimation. We discuss these findings in relation to the role of "veridical mapping" in the development of special ability (Mottron, Dawson, & Soulieres, 2009; Mottron, Dawson, Soulieres, Hubert, & Burack, 2006a). Veridical mapping is the detection of isomorphism within a code, between two codes, or between one code and isomorphic elements of the world. Within this framework, it is proposed that estimation abilities, like absolute pitch, rely on the ability to map a verbal code with a specific magnitude of a psychophysical dimension.

Age of Speech Onset in Autism Relates to Structural Connectivity in the Language Network.

Speech onset delays (SOD) and language atypicalities are central aspects of the autism spectrum (AS), despite not being included in the categorical diagnosis of AS. Previous studies separating participants according to speech onset history have shown distinct patterns of brain organization and activation in perceptual tasks. One major white matter tract, the arcuate fasciculus (AF), connects the posterior temporal and left frontal language regions. Here, we used anatomical brain imaging to investigate the properties of the AF in adolescent and adult autistic individuals with typical levels of intelligence who differed by age of speech onset. The left AF of the AS group showed a significantly smaller volume than that of the nonautistic group. Such a reduction in volume was only present in the younger group. This result was driven by the autistic group without SOD (SOD-), despite their typical age of speech onset. The autistic group with SOD (SOD+) showed a more typical AF as adults relative to matched controls. This suggests that, along with multiple studies in AS-SOD+ individuals, atypical brain reorganization is observable in the 2 major AS subgroups and that such reorganization applies mostly to the language regions in SOD- and perceptual regions in SOD+ individuals.

Enhanced visual processing contributes to matrix reasoning in autism.

Recent behavioral investigations have revealed that autistics perform more proficiently on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) than would be predicted by their Wechsler intelligence scores. A widely-used test of fluid reasoning and intelligence, the RSPM assays abilities to flexibly infer rules, manage goal hierarchies, and perform high-level abstractions. The neural substrates for these abilities are known to encompass a large frontoparietal network, with different processing models placing variable emphasis on the specific roles of the prefrontal or posterior regions. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the neural bases of autistics' RSPM problem solving. Fifteen autistic and eighteen non-autistic participants, matched on age, sex, manual preference and Wechsler IQ, completed 60 self-paced randomly-ordered RSPM items along with a visually similar 60-item pattern matching comparison task. Accuracy and response times did not differ between groups in the pattern matching task. In the RSPM task, autistics performed with similar accuracy, but with shorter response times, compared to their non-autistic controls. In both the entire sample and a subsample of participants additionally matched on RSPM performance to control for potential response time confounds, neural activity was similar in both groups for the pattern matching task. However, for the RSPM task, autistics displayed relatively increased task-related activity in extrastriate areas (BA18), and decreased activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex (BA9) and the medial posterior parietal cortex (BA7). Visual processing mechanisms may therefore play a more prominent role in reasoning in autistics.

Assessing intelligence at autism diagnosis: mission impossible? Testability and cognitive profile of autistic preschoolers.

Intelligence in minimally verbal children on the autism spectrum (AS) is at risk of being underestimated. The present study investigated testability and cognitive profile of preschool autistic children using conventional tools and strength-informed tools. Fifty-two AS children and fifty-four typical children matched on age (31-77 months) were assessed. Testability increased with age in both groups, was generally lower in AS children, but not related to their test performance. Typical children performed significantly better than AS children on conventional tools, but performance of both groups was similar on strength-informed tools. Differences of performance across tests were much greater in the AS group. These results emphasize the heterogenous, yet characteristic, cognitive profile in preschool children, and introduce the usefulness of flexible testing.

Temporal Changes in Effect Sizes of Studies Comparing Individuals With and Without Autism: A Meta-analysis.

Importance: The definition and nature of autism have been highly debated, as exemplified by several revisions of the DSM (DSM-III, DSM-IIIR, DSM-IV, and DSM-5) criteria. There has recently been a move from a categorical view toward a spectrum-based view. These changes have been accompanied by a steady increase in the prevalence of the condition. Changes in the definition of autism that may increase heterogeneity could affect the results of autism research; specifically, a broadening of the population with autism could result in decreasing effect sizes of group comparison studies. Objective: To examine the correlation between publication year and effect size of autism-control group comparisons across several domains of published autism neurocognitive research. Data Sources: This meta-analysis investigated 11 meta-analyses obtained through a systematic search of PubMed for meta-analyses published from January 1, 1966, through January 27, 2019, using the search string autism AND (meta-analysis OR meta-analytic). The last search was conducted on January 27, 2019. Study Selection: Meta-analyses were included if they tested the significance of group differences between individuals with autism and control individuals on a neurocognitive construct. Meta-analyses were only included if the tested group difference was significant and included data with a span of at least 15 years. Data Extraction and Synthesis: Data were extracted and analyzed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) reporting guideline using fixed-effects models. Main Outcomes and Measures: Estimated slope of the correlation between publication year and effect size, controlling for differences in methods, sample size, and study quality. Results: The 11 meta-analyses included data from a total of 27 723 individuals. Demographic data such as sex and age were not available for the entire data set. Seven different psychological and neurologic constructs were analyzed based on data from these meta-analyses. Downward temporal trends for effect size were found for all constructs (slopes: -0.067 to -0.003), with the trend being significant in 5 of 7 cases: emotion recognition (slope: -0.028 [95% CI, -0.048 to -0.007]), theory of mind (-0.045 [95% CI, -0.066 to -0.024]), planning (-0.067 [95% CI, -0.125 to -0.009]), P3b amplitude (-0.048 [95% CI, -0.093 to -0.004]), and brain size (-0.047 [95% CI, -0.077 to -0.016]). In contrast, 3 analogous constructs in schizophrenia, a condition that is also heterogeneous but with no reported increase in prevalence, did not show a similar trend. Conclusions and Relevance: The findings suggest that differences between individuals with autism and those without the diagnosis have decreased over time and that possible changes in the definition of autism from a narrowly defined and homogenous population toward an inclusive and heterogeneous population may reduce our capacity to build mechanistic models of the condition.