Cognitive flexibility (CF) is the ability to shift between concepts or rules. Difficulty with CF is associated with autism (i.e., ASD) as it contributes to repetitive behaviours. However, little is known about CF skills of autistic adolescents with low intelligence. This study uses the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) to assess the CF of 36…

Interpersonal Skills (ISs) and Executive Functions (EFs) are two groups of skills which are extremely relevant for children's cognitive, social and psychological development. As well as being interrelated, both can be modulated by other variables such as intelligence or sex. Many studies have tried to establish the relationship between them, but…

Dysexecutive syndrome has been consistently reported in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Particularly, impairments have been documented in working memory, inhibition, and mental flexibility. However, the relationship between executive impairments and intellectual functioning is far from clear in this population. This…

Children develop their language capacities and executive functions (EF) throughout their school-aged years. Research has shown that bilingual children show different patterns of EF performance when compared to their monolingual counterparts. However, it is less clear how variations in children's multilingual experiences associate with variation in…

Background: Executive functions (EF) impairments have long been observed in children and youths with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Until very recently, little attention has been paid to examine EF profiles of adults with ASD. Given the importance of EF to cope with the demands of daily life and participate in society (e.g. maintaining an…

Item recognition and temporal order memory follow different developmental trajectories during middle childhood, with item recognition performance stabilizing and temporal order memory performance continuing to improve. We investigated the potential unique role of individual executive functions on item recognition and temporal order memory during…

Executive functions (EFs) are an umbrella term that includes various cognitive abilities (such as inhibition, planning, goal-setting, monitoring, and shifting). There is common agreement that there are three main EFs: inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. Further studies have reported that compared to typically developing…

Mathematical problems can be divided into two types, namely, process-open and process-constrained problems. Solving these two types of problems may require different cognitive mechanisms. However, there has been only one study that investigated the differences of the cognitive abilities in process-open and process-constrained problem solving, and…

Background: In this study we aimed to explore how intelligence and executive functioning are related to decision-making regarding social situations in persons with mild ID. Method: We studied 80 vocational school students with mild ID; the controls were 80 students of a similar age. We assessed decision-making ability with the Important Life…

The purpose of the study is to examine the role of spatial ability and attention shifting in reading of illustrated science texts. Thirty-five fourth/fifth elementary students read two science texts. Prior knowledge and retention/transfer learning outcomes were measured using researcher-developed measures. While reading, students' eye movements…

Objective: Theory suggests that impaired executive functioning (EF) might explain several symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. However, only a few studies have examined the efficacy of EF training for the children using randomized control trial designs, and only two of them found significant benefits of the training. Method: We…

Purpose: This study examined bilinguals' performance on functional executive function map tasks such as the Zoo Map from the Behavioural Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome and the extent to which working memory, set-shifting, and inhibition measures predicted bilinguals' performance on these tasks. Additionally, we explored the utility of…

This study examines differences in English language comprehension, reading fluency, and executive functions among Spanish-English bilinguals with reading difficulties. Reading difficulties examined included general reading difficulties, defined by low word reading and reading comprehension, and specific-reading comprehension difficulties, defined…

This study examines differences in English language comprehension, reading fluency, and executive functions among Spanish-English bilinguals with reading difficulties. Reading difficulties examined included general reading difficulties, defined by low word reading and reading comprehension, and specific-reading comprehension difficulties, defined…