Department of Health Sciences, University of Burgos, 09001 Burgos, Spain.
Department of Educational Sciences, University of Burgos, 09001 Burgos, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jun 29;19(13):7987. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19137987.
Autism spectrum disorders are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social and communication functioning. Previous studies suggest that people with autism spectrum disorders have deficits in executive functions, having found a relationship with cognitive flexibility, planning, working memory, inhibition or self-control, but it is especially with respect to cognitive flexibility where the greatest dysfunctions have been found. The objective of this research was to compare the executive functioning of a group of children and adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders with another with neurotypical development in an educational context.
This was a cross-sectional, descriptive and multicenter confirmatory study in which 121 people who participated acted as informants, with 70 of them being education professionals who work with people with autism spectrum disorders grade 1 and 2 and 51 of them being teachers who work with people of neurotypical development; these individuals were selected through non-probabilistic sampling.
People diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders obtained significantly higher scores on the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-2 scale for the nine clinical scales and the four indexes that compose it compared to the group of people with neurotypical development; in addition, the average scores obtained are clinically significant, with them being elevated for the group with autism spectrum disorders. This study confirms that children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders experience greater difficulties with respect to their executive functions than children with neurotypical development.
自闭症谱系障碍是一种神经发育障碍，其特征是社交和沟通功能缺陷。先前的研究表明，自闭症谱系障碍患者的执行功能存在缺陷，与认知灵活性、计划、工作记忆、抑制或自我控制有关，但在认知灵活性方面发现的功能障碍最大。本研究的目的是在教育环境中比较一组被诊断为自闭症谱系障碍的儿童和青少年与另一组具有神经典型发育的儿童和青少年的执行功能。
这是一项横断面、描述性和多中心验证性研究，共有 121 人作为信息提供者参与其中，其中 70 人是从事自闭症谱系障碍 1 级和 2 级教育的专业教育工作者，51 人是从事神经典型发育教育的教师；这些人是通过非概率抽样选择的。
与具有神经典型发育的组相比，被诊断为自闭症谱系障碍的个体在行为评定量表-执行功能 2 量表的九个临床量表和组成它的四个指标上的得分显著更高；此外，所获得的平均分数具有临床意义，自闭症谱系障碍组的分数升高。本研究证实，自闭症谱系障碍儿童和青少年在执行功能方面比具有神经典型发育的儿童和青少年经历更大的困难。
