a Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry , Erasmus Medical Centre , Rotterdam , The Netherlands.
b The Generation R Study Group , Erasmus Medical Centre , Rotterdam , The Netherlands.
Child Neuropsychol. 2019 Apr;25(3):352-369. doi: 10.1080/09297049.2018.1465543. Epub 2018 Apr 23.
Clinical studies of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) provide evidence for poorer neuropsychological performance within specific domains compared to age, gender, and sometimes IQ-matched controls. Since recent evidence suggests that autistic symptoms form a spectrum that extends into the general population, it was our goal to evaluate the nature of the relationship between autistic traits and neuropsychological performance across the continuum in the general population. We examined neuropsychological performance across five different domains in 1019 6-to-10-year-old children participating in a population-based study of child development. Autistic traits were assessed when the children were 6 years of age using the Social Responsiveness Scale and ASD diagnoses were obtained via medical records. Neuropsychological functioning was measured using the NEPSY-II-NL and included the domains of attention and executive function, memory and learning, sensorimotor functioning, language, and visuospatial functioning. We found that children with higher autistic traits showed significantly lower neuropsychological performance in all domains investigated and that this association remained even after excluding children with the highest autistic traits or confirmed ASD. When comparing 41 children with confirmed ASD diagnosis to typically developing controls, children with ASD showed significantly lower neuropsychological performance across all domains. Taken together, our results suggest that children with both ASD and subclinical autistic traits have lower neuropsychological performance. Thus, this may provide an understanding of why some children without an ASD diagnosis may require some additional assistance within academic settings.
临床研究表明，与年龄、性别和智力匹配的对照组相比，自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童在特定领域的神经心理学表现较差。由于最近的证据表明，自闭症症状形成了一个延伸到普通人群的谱系，因此我们的目标是评估自闭症谱系障碍特征与普通人群中连续体上神经心理学表现之间的关系本质。我们在一项针对儿童发育的基于人群的研究中，对 1019 名 6 至 10 岁的儿童进行了五个不同领域的神经心理学评估。在儿童 6 岁时，使用社会反应量表评估自闭症谱系障碍特征，通过医疗记录获得自闭症谱系障碍诊断。神经心理学功能使用 NEPSY-II-NL 进行测量，包括注意力和执行功能、记忆和学习、感觉运动功能、语言和视空间功能等领域。我们发现，自闭症谱系障碍特征较高的儿童在所有研究领域的神经心理学表现均显著较低，即使排除自闭症谱系障碍特征最高或确诊自闭症谱系障碍的儿童后，这种关联仍然存在。当将 41 名确诊自闭症谱系障碍的儿童与典型发育对照组进行比较时，自闭症谱系障碍儿童在所有领域的神经心理学表现均显著较低。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，自闭症谱系障碍和亚临床自闭症谱系障碍特征的儿童神经心理学表现较差。因此，这可能有助于理解为什么一些没有自闭症谱系障碍诊断的儿童在学术环境中可能需要额外的帮助。
