Brief Report: A Gaming Approach to the Assessment of Attention Networks in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development.
Lisa E Mash, Raymond M Klein, Jeanne Townsend
PMID 29948528WHAT IT FOUND
Both a traditional attention task and a racing-wheel game detected alerting, orienting and executive control scores in young autistic and non-autistic adults.
The game's executive control score was not consistent, so it is not yet a dependable assessment.
Key findings
01Both the Attention Network Test and the AttentionTrip produced orienting, alerting and executive control network scores that were significantly different from zero in both the ASD and TD groups.
02The only significant group difference in network scores was a smaller alerting effect in the ASD group on the Attention Network Test.
03The AttentionTrip executive control score had very low split-half reliability in both groups, with r = -.04, while the Attention Network Test executive control score was more reliable at r = .73.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study had 40 participants and was designed as a proof of concept, not a full test of reliability or validity. The sample was mostly male and included only high-functioning adults with ASD, so it cannot show how the task performs across sexes, in children or in low-functioning individuals with ASD. One ASD participant was excluded from the ANT analysis because of low accuracy, and the AttentionTrip executive control score showed very low split-half consistency. The study did not directly measure engagement or motivation, so lower reaction time variability in the AttentionTrip cannot be taken as proof that it is more engaging. The AttentionTrip used a color discrimination task that may have been too easy to produce meaningful individual differences in executive control.
Declared interests
The authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the AttentionTrip as a reliable or validated attention assessment. This was a small proof-of-concept study, engagement was not directly measured, and the executive control score showed very low split-half consistency in both groups.