de Vries Marieke, Geurts Hilde M
d'Arc, Brain & Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2014 Sep;121(9):1183-98. doi: 10.1007/s00702-014-1225-z. Epub 2014 May 6.
Findings on working memory (WM) and inhibition in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are contradictory and earlier studies largely ignored individual differences. As WM and inhibition seem to be related, children who experience WM deficits might also experience inhibition deficits. Moreover, these children possibly form a distinct subgroup, differing on other variables, such as cognitive functioning, symptom severity, behavior, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) characteristics. We studied a large sample of children with and without ASD (8-12 years, IQ > 80) with classic experimental tasks (n-back task, ASD n = 77, control n = 45; stop task, ASD n = 74, control n = 43), and explored individual differences. The ASD group made more errors on the n-back task with increasing WM load, and had longer stop signal reaction times on the stop task when compared with controls. However, only 6 % of the ASD group showed both WM and inhibition deficits, and 71 % showed no deficits. Parents of children with WM and/or inhibition deficits tended to report more conduct problems on the disruptive behavior disorder rating scale. ADHD characteristics did not influence performance. Some children used medication during testing, which seemingly influenced stop task performance, but excluding these data did not change the main findings. Large individual differences in cognitive functioning are present, even within children with ASD with average or above average intelligence. However, whether individual differences in specific cognitive domains, such as WM and inhibition are as informative as individual differences in diagnosis, comorbidity, and general cognitive functioning, calls for future research.
关于自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的工作记忆（WM）和抑制能力的研究结果相互矛盾，早期研究很大程度上忽略了个体差异。由于WM和抑制能力似乎相关，存在WM缺陷的儿童可能也存在抑制能力缺陷。此外，这些儿童可能构成一个独特的亚组，在其他变量上存在差异，如认知功能、症状严重程度、行为以及注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）特征。我们使用经典实验任务（n-back任务，ASD组n = 77，对照组n = 45；停止任务，ASD组n = 74，对照组n = 43）对大量有和没有ASD的儿童（8 - 12岁，智商> 80）进行了研究，并探讨了个体差异。与对照组相比，ASD组在n-back任务中随着WM负荷增加错误更多，在停止任务中的停止信号反应时间更长。然而，ASD组中只有6%同时表现出WM和抑制能力缺陷，71%没有缺陷。有WM和/或抑制能力缺陷的儿童的父母在破坏性行为障碍评定量表上往往报告更多行为问题。ADHD特征并未影响表现。一些儿童在测试期间使用了药物，这似乎影响了停止任务的表现，但排除这些数据并未改变主要研究结果。即使在智力平均水平或以上的ASD儿童中，认知功能也存在很大的个体差异。然而，特定认知领域（如WM和抑制能力）的个体差异是否与诊断、共病和一般认知功能方面的个体差异一样具有信息价值，这有待未来研究。
