Ozonoff S, Rogers S J, Farnham J M, Pennington B F
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112.
J Autism Dev Disord. 1993 Sep;23(3):429-41. doi: 10.1007/BF01046049.
This study compared the executive function and theory-of-mind abilities of siblings of autistic individuals to those of siblings of learning-disabled controls. Three different analyses of the dependent measures provided convergent support for a potential subclinical marker in the executive function domain. No group differences in theory-of-mind abilities were found. However, power analyses revealed that the measures employed in this study, which are typically used with autistic individuals, were not sufficiently sensitive to detect any group differences that might exist in "unaffected" family members. Suggestions for future research are provided, including the need to develop more sensitive tasks that produce larger effects and measure more elementary cognitive operations.
本研究比较了自闭症个体的兄弟姐妹与学习障碍对照者的兄弟姐妹的执行功能和心理理论能力。对相关测量指标的三种不同分析为执行功能领域中一个潜在的亚临床标志物提供了趋同支持。在心理理论能力方面未发现组间差异。然而，功效分析表明，本研究中采用的测量方法（通常用于自闭症个体）对检测“未受影响”家庭成员中可能存在的任何组间差异不够敏感。文中提供了对未来研究的建议，包括需要开发更敏感的任务，这些任务能产生更大的效应并测量更基本的认知操作。
