Superior Disembedding in Children with ASD: New Tests Using Abstract, Meaningful, and 3D Contexts.
Ruth Van der Hallen, Rebecca Chamberlain, Lee de-Wit and 1 others
PMID 29468574WHAT IT FOUND
Children with ASD found hidden shapes more accurately than typically developing peers on embedded-figures tests.
They were slower on meaningful and depth tests. This describes a visual processing pattern, not a treatment effect.
Key findings
01On the L-EFT, children with ASD were more accurate than typically developing children, with mean accuracy 0.88 for ASD and 0.77 for typically developing children.
02On the M-EFT, children with ASD were more accurate, with mean accuracy 0.81 for ASD and 0.61 for typically developing children, but were about 400 ms slower.
03On the D-EFT, children with ASD were more accurate, with mean accuracy 0.63 for ASD and 0.41 for typically developing children, but were about 700 ms slower.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The paper reports only embedded-figures task accuracy and reaction time; it does not report functional outcomes. Partial D-EFT data were lost because of technical issues for 4 participants. The ASD group was slower than the TD group on the M-EFT and D-EFT, so the accuracy advantage may reflect a different speed-accuracy trade-off rather than faster visual processing. The sample was Dutch-speaking and recruited from one autism expertise centre and mainstream schools, so it may not represent all children with ASD. The paper states the groups were matched, but Table 1 shows mean age 12.54 years for ASD and 11.71 years for TD, with p = 0.07.
Declared interests
The supplied text reports only a Methusalem Grant awarded by the Flemish Government as funder.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that children with ASD have better everyday visual skills. The study measured accuracy on computer embedded-figures tasks, and the ASD group was slower on meaningful and depth tasks.