Landa Rebecca J, Goldberg Melissa C
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2005 Oct;35(5):557-73. doi: 10.1007/s10803-005-0001-1.
This study examined language and executive functions (EF) in high-functioning school-aged individuals with autism and individually matched controls. Relationships between executive, language, and social functioning were also examined. Participants with autism exhibited difficulty on measures of expressive grammar, figurative language, planning, and spatial working memory. A mixed profile of impaired and enhanced abilities was noted in set-shifting. While controls showed the typical increase in errors when shifting sets from an intra-dimensional to an extra-dimensional stimulus, this pattern was not noted in participants with autism. Relationships between EF, language, and social performance were weak to non-existent. Implications for theories of core deficit in autism and dissociable nature of the language and executive impairments in autism are discussed.
本研究调查了高功能学龄自闭症个体及个体匹配的对照组的语言能力和执行功能（EF）。同时也研究了执行功能、语言能力和社交功能之间的关系。自闭症参与者在表达性语法、比喻性语言、计划和空间工作记忆测试中表现出困难。在任务转换方面，发现了能力受损和增强的混合情况。当对照组从维度内刺激转换到维度外刺激时错误典型性增加，但自闭症参与者未出现这种模式。执行功能、语言能力和社交表现之间的关系微弱甚至不存在。文中讨论了该研究结果对自闭症核心缺陷理论以及自闭症语言和执行功能障碍可分离性质的意义。
