Innlandet Hospital Trust, Division Mental Health Care, Lillehammer, Norway ; University of Oslo, Institute of Psychology, Oslo, Norway.
PLoS One. 2013 May 22;8(5):e64842. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0064842. Print 2013.
Symptoms similar to those found in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often occur in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The objective of the current study was to compare verbal working memory, acquisition and delayed recall in children with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) to children with ADHD and typically developing children (TDC). Thirty-eight children with HFA, 79 with ADHD and 50 TDC (age 8-17) were assessed with a letter/number sequencing task and a verbal list-learning task. To investigate the possible influence of attention problems in children with HFA, we divided the HFA group into children with (HFA+) or without (HFA-) "attention problems" according to the Child Behaviour Checklist 6-18. The children with HFA+ displayed significant impairment compared to TDC on all three neurocognitive measures, while the children with HFA- were significantly impaired compared to TDC only on the working memory and acquisition measures. In addition, the HFA+ group scored significantly below the HFA- group and the ADHD group on the verbal working memory and delayed recall measures. The results support the proposition that children with HFA+, HFA-, and ADHD differ not only on a clinical level but also on a neurocognitive level which may have implications for treatment.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童常出现类似注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）的症状。本研究旨在比较高功能自闭症（HFA）儿童、ADHD 儿童和正常发育儿童（TDC）的言语工作记忆、获得和延迟回忆能力。共有 38 名 HFA 儿童、79 名 ADHD 儿童和 50 名 TDC 儿童（年龄 8-17 岁）接受了字母/数字排序任务和言语列表学习任务的评估。为了研究 HFA 儿童注意力问题的可能影响，我们根据儿童行为检查表 6-18 将 HFA 组分为有（HFA+）或无（HFA-）“注意力问题”的儿童。与 TDC 相比，HFA+儿童在所有三种神经认知测量中均显示出显著的损伤，而 HFA-儿童仅在工作记忆和获得测量中显著受损。此外，HFA+组在言语工作记忆和延迟回忆测量中的得分明显低于 HFA-组和 ADHD 组。结果支持了这样一种观点，即 HFA+、HFA-和 ADHD 儿童不仅在临床水平上存在差异，而且在神经认知水平上也存在差异，这可能对治疗有影响。
