Local and Global Visual Processing in 3-Year-Olds With and Without Autism.
Elisabeth Nilsson Jobs, Terje Falck-Ytter, Sven Bölte
PMID 29411217WHAT IT FOUND
Three-year-olds with autism found more hidden pictures than high-risk siblings without autism and low-risk children.
They were not faster or better on the other local tasks, and global visual processing did not differ.
Key findings
01On Hidden Pictures, children with autism had higher accuracy than high-risk siblings without autism and low-risk children (13.89, 10.57, and 10.38 correct targets out of 16).
02The Hidden Pictures accuracy difference remained after correction for multiple comparisons and after accounting for non-verbal IQ.
03No group differences were found for accuracy or response latency on the other local tasks or on the global tasks.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small, with 49 children, and the study had acceptable power only for large effects, not medium or small effects. The children were not perfectly comparable: non-verbal IQ differed between the low-risk group and the autism group. Some tasks were adapted for 3-year-olds from tests made for older children, and latency measures were based on only a few items. The number of children analysed varied by task because recordings were missing or children looked away or were distracted. More girls than boys took part, and the authors state this may affect results.
Declared interests
Funded by The Swedish Research Council (with FAS, FORMAS and VINNOVA), the ESF COST Action BM1004 'ESSEA', the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, and the European Research Council through the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking (grant agreement number 115300). It includes contributions from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme and in-kind contributions from companies in the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autism produces a general local visual processing advantage. Only the Hidden Pictures accuracy result was significant, and the global tasks and other local tasks showed no group differences. The sample was small, so this is a single study finding rather than evidence for routine clinical use.