Autism Symptoms, Executive Functioning and Academic Progress in Higher Education Students.
Renée Dijkhuis, Leo de Sonneville, Tim Ziermans and 2 others
PMID 31939082WHAT IT FOUND
Among higher education students with autism, self-reported planning and organizing problems were linked to earning fewer course credits.
Computerized flexibility and working memory scores were also linked to progress, but those task scores did not each add clear information about progress.
Key findings
01Higher autism symptom scores and poorer self-reported daily executive function were associated with lower academic progress.
02After autism symptom severity was included, self-reported plan and organize was the only daily executive function subscale that remained a significant predictor of academic progress.
03Computerized cognitive flexibility and working memory scores were associated with academic progress, but no individual performance-based predictor remained significant in the final model.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
Only 39 participants had usable academic progress data, and 14 were missing because they stopped studies, switched education, did not attend follow-up, or had depression symptoms at follow-up. The sample had a mean estimated IQ of 118.28, so the findings may not apply to autistic students with lower IQ levels. The regression models used relatively few participants for the number of predictors, and the performance-based model had too few participants for individual predictors to be clear. Academic progress was measured as percentage of credits earned, not as learning, independence, self-determination, or social experiences. The study was observational and did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that improving executive function causes better academic progress. Participants were recruited through a support service for students with ASD and had to have co-morbid psychopathology in remission or minimal impact, so they may not represent all autistic students in higher education.
Declared interests
The paper lists JADOS as the funder. No other conflict-of-interest statement is provided.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving planning and organizing will raise academic progress. This was an observational study of 39 students with academic data, and it did not test an intervention. The performance-based executive function predictors also did not remain individually significant.