Han Yvonne M Y, Chan Agnes S
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Neuropsychology Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Res Dev Disabil. 2017 Feb;61:19-31. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2016.12.010. Epub 2016 Dec 30.
The present study examined the executive function and cortical connectivity of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and investigated whether the executive function deficits exhibited by these children were differentially affected and associated with the cortical connectivity. The present study compared high-functioning (HFA) and low-functioning (LFA) children with typically developing children (TDC) on their executive functions as measured by the Hong Kong List Learning Test, D2 Test of Concentration, Five Point Test, Children's Color Trail Test, Tower of California Test, and Go/No-Go task and neural connectivity as measured by theta coherence in the distributed fronto-parietal network. Thirty-eight children with ASD (19 HFA and 19 LFA) and 28 TDC children, aged 8-17 years, participated voluntarily in the study. The results on executive function showed that the LFA group demonstrated the poorest performance as exhibited by their Executive Composite and individual executive function scores, while the TDC group exhibited the highest. These results have extended the findings of previous studies in demonstrating that HFA and LFA children have significant differences in their degree of executive function deficits. The results on neural connectivity also showed that children with ASD demonstrated a different pattern of electroencephalography (EEG) coherence from TDC children, as demonstrated by the significantly elevated theta coherence in the fronto-parietal network, and that the severity of executive dysfunction between high- and low-functioning children with ASD was found to be associated with the disordered neural connectivity in these children.
本研究考察了自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的执行功能和皮层连接性，并探究了这些儿童所表现出的执行功能缺陷是否受到不同影响以及与皮层连接性相关。本研究将高功能（HFA）和低功能（LFA）自闭症儿童与发育正常儿童（TDC）在执行功能方面进行了比较，执行功能通过香港列表学习测试、D2注意力测试、五点测试、儿童色线测试、加利福尼亚塔测试和Go/No-Go任务来衡量；同时还比较了神经连接性，通过分布式额顶网络中的θ连贯性来测量。38名年龄在8至17岁的ASD儿童（19名HFA和19名LFA）以及28名TDC儿童自愿参与了本研究。执行功能的结果显示，LFA组在执行综合得分和个体执行功能得分方面表现最差，而TDC组表现最佳。这些结果扩展了先前研究的发现，表明HFA和LFA儿童在执行功能缺陷程度上存在显著差异。神经连接性的结果还表明，ASD儿童与TDC儿童表现出不同的脑电图（EEG）连贯性模式，额顶网络中的θ连贯性显著升高，并且发现ASD高功能和低功能儿童之间执行功能障碍的严重程度与这些儿童的神经连接紊乱有关。
