There is evidence that autistic children may have reduced executive function skills, contributing to day-to-day difficulties, but much remains unknown regarding the influence of bilingualism. We investigated its influence on sustained attention, interference control, flexible switching and working memory, in Arabic-English autistic (n = 27)…

In the present study we aim at providing further evidences for the validity of an initiation processes impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We applied different verbal fluency tasks designed to decrease or enhance this limitation. A group of high-functioning individuals with ASD and a group of typically developed individuals matched for…

Social difficulties are a key aspect of autism, but the intervening factors are still poorly understood. This study had two objectives: to compare the profile of ToM skills, executive functioning (EF), and pragmatic competence (PC) of children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and children with typical development (TD), and analyze their mediator…

Autistic traits and executive function (EF) were assessed in 413 typically developing children aged 6-9 years. The children were divided into the high- autistic-trait (HAT) and low-autistic-trait (LAT) groups based on their total autistic traits. Results suggested that there were gender differences in specific autistic traits in children with LAT.…

Social decision making is often challenging for autistic individuals. Twenty autistic adolescents made decisions in the socially interactive context of a one-shot ultimatum game, and performance was compared to a large matched typical reference sample. Theory of mind, executive functioning and emotion regulation were measured via direct…

Studies of executive function (EF) in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have reported mixed findings. Possible confounds include EF domain assessed and co-occurring neurodevelopmental diagnoses. EF task performance across multiple domains and everyday function of autistic adults (n = 110) was significantly different to age- and IQ-matched controls (n…

This study investigated the effects of bilingualism on set-shifting and working memory in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Bilinguals with ASD were predicted to display a specific bilingual advantage in set-shifting, but not working memory, relative to monolinguals with ASD. Forty 6- to 9-year-old children participated (20 ASD, 20…

Little is known about age-related cognitive differences in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, given the overlap in cognitive impairments in ASD to those seen in typical aging, it is possible that adults with ASD will face even greater cognitive difficulties as they age. The current study used a cross-sectional design to examine age-related…

Understanding that people's ideas may be false is a challenging step in Theory of Mind (ToM) development, which is accomplished around the age of 4-5 years old by typically developing (TD) children. False-belief attribution remains difficult beyond this age for certain clinical populations, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), where delays in…

Imitation problems are commonly reported in children with an autism spectrum disorder. However, it has not yet been determined whether imitation problems persist into young adulthood. In this study, we investigated imitation skills of 20 intellectually able young adults with autism spectrum disorder relative to 19 age-matched neurotypical adults.…

A novel battery (BAFE; Valeri et al. 2015) was used in order to assess three executive function (EF) abilities (working memory, inhibition and shifting) in a sample of 27 intellectually able preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared with 27 typically developing children matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Differences in EF skills were…

Background: Academic challenges such as losing/not turning in assignments, misplacing materials, and inefficient studying are common in middle-school students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability. Deficits in organization, planning, prioritizing, memory/materials management, and studying skills [i.e. academic…

This study compared social, executive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of students with autism spectrum disorder who did and did not display school refusal behavior. The participants were 62 students with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability aged 9-16 years attending inclusive schools. Parents first completed…

Flexibility is a key component of executive function, and is related to everyday functioning and adult outcomes. However, existing informant reports do not densely sample cognitive aspects of flexibility; the Flexibility Scale (FS) was developed to address this gap. This study investigates the validity of the FS in 221 youth with ASD and 57…

We re-evaluate conclusions about disfluency production in high-functioning forms of autism spectrum disorder (HFA). Previous studies examined individuals with HFA to address a theoretical question regarding speaker- and listener-oriented disfluencies. Individuals with HFA tend to be self-centric and have poor pragmatic language skills, and should…