Evaluating the Feasibility of The NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery for Autistic Children and Adolescents.
Desiree R Jones, Aaron Dallman, Clare Harrop and 5 others
PMID 33761062WHAT IT FOUND
Most autistic children completed the NIH Toolbox cognitive tests, but those with IQs below 70 struggled with the later tasks.
The tests identified specific cognitive weaknesses in inhibition and processing speed, but did not show expected differences in flexibility or memory.
Key findings
01Autistic children completed fewer cognitive tasks on average than typically developing children, with only 57% completing all four tasks compared to 88% of controls.
02Children with IQs below 70 had significantly lower completion rates for the processing speed and episodic memory tasks compared to the earlier inhibitory control and flexibility tasks.
03After controlling for age and IQ, autistic children performed worse than typically developing children on the inhibitory control and processing speed tasks, but not on the cognitive flexibility or episodic memory tasks.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The tasks were administered in a fixed order, so the lower completion rates for the last two tasks might be due to fatigue rather than the tasks themselves being harder for this population. The study did not compare NIH-TCB results against other established cognitive tests, so it measures feasibility rather than validity. Child language ability was not measured separately from IQ, so it is unclear if communication deficits contributed to task failure. The sample was predominantly white and high-income, which may limit how well the results generalize to other populations.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the low completion rates for the processing speed and memory tasks prove these abilities are impaired. The tasks were given last in a fixed order, so children may have simply been too tired to finish them.