Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder of All Ages, Levels of Symptom Severity and General Cognitive Ability Display Low Processing Speed Index Scores Warranting Special Educational Assistance.
M Linnenbank, R Feldmann, G Schulte-Körne and 2 others
PMID 34453226WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism and no intellectual disability had low processing speed scores.
The low scores were present across ages, general ability, symptom severity and uneven verbal and reasoning score profiles. This suggests school support may be needed regardless of those differences.
Key findings
01The children's processing speed scores were lower than the test norm and lower than their verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning scores.
02The processing speed weakness was present in children with higher and lower general cognitive ability.
03After the multiple-comparison correction, processing speed was not related to age, autism symptom scores, or verbal-nonverbal ability discrepancy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study had no typically developing control group, so it compares the children with autism to a test norm rather than to matched peers. It was cross-sectional, so it cannot show how processing speed changes with age. Only 10 girls were included, so conclusions about girls are underpowered. Children with full-scale IQ below 70, language-impaired ADOS modules, and co-morbid psychiatric disorders were excluded, so the findings apply to fluent, higher-IQ ASD outpatients. The processing speed score may reflect graphomotor and visual-motor demands as well as speed of information processing. The study did not link processing speed to achievement scores or grades.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the low processing speed score as proof that the child's information processing is slow. The score may be lowered by handwriting and visual-motor demands, and the study did not separate those causes.