Sex as a Moderator Between Parent Ratings of Executive Dysfunction and Social Difficulties in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Tonje Torske, Terje Nærland, Daniel S Quintana and 7 others
PMID 35838825WHAT IT FOUND
In girls with autism, higher parent-reported executive difficulty was linked to more social and communication problems.
In boys, that link was not seen. Clinicians assessing girls may need to consider executive functioning alongside social communication.
Key findings
01For girls with ASD, higher parent-rated executive difficulty was associated with more social interaction difficulties; for boys, the association was not significant.
02For girls with ASD, higher parent-rated executive difficulty was also associated with more communication difficulties; for boys, the association was not significant.
03Girls and boys did not differ significantly in total parent-rated executive difficulty or ADI-R social and communication domain scores.
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
Only 25 girls were included, so the finding for girls rests on a small subgroup. Participants were recruited from specialist health services, so the sample may not represent children with milder ASD. The study measured associations at assessment and cannot show that executive difficulty causes social or communication difficulties. Both the executive function score and the autism symptom scores relied on parent/caregiver information, so shared reporting bias is possible. No typically developing comparison group was included, so it is unclear whether the pattern is specific to ASD. The authors report modest effect sizes and wide confidence intervals, and several sex differences were only borderline before adjustment.
Declared interests
The supplied text lists funders: Stiftelsen K.G. Jebsen, the National Research Council of Norway, South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, and Vestre Viken Hospital Trust. It does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that girls with ASD have more executive difficulties than boys or that executive-function training will improve social communication. The girls and boys did not differ significantly in total parent-rated executive difficulty, and no intervention was tested.