Date Presented 03/28/20
This study aimed to investigate the relations between EF and social interaction in preschool children. The results of the study show that accuracy in single and mixed blocks is significantly correlated with restricted interests and repetitive behaviors in preschool children with ASD. The results indicate that children with ASD who have better accuracy, not response speed, on EF tasks have less limited interests and fewer stereotyped behaviors.
Primary Author and Speaker: Cheng-Chun Kuei-Cheng
Contributing Authors: Chien-Ho Lin, Ching-Lin Hsieh, Yen-Ting Yu, Kuan-Lin Chen
PURPOSE: Executive function (EF) is a high-level cognitive function mainly consisting of working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility. EF impairment is common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Their impaired EF may cause their difficulties in social interaction. Understanding the relations between EF and social interaction in preschool children with ASD can assist clinicians and researchers to establish evaluation plans and early intervention strategies for preschool children with ASD. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relations between EF and social interaction in preschool children.
DESIGN: This study was an observational cohort study. Preschool children with ASD were recruited, and children were excluded if they had neurological dysfunction, chromosomal abnormality, or uncorrectable visual or hearing impairments.
METHOD: Children’s EF and social interaction were measured with the Dimensional change cards sort (DCCS) task and the Social Responsiveness Scale, second edition (SRS-2)—school-aged form (4–18 years old) respectively. The SRS-2 includes 5 subscales: social awareness, social cognition, social communication, social motivation, and restricted interests and repetitive behavior. The accuracy (ACC) and reaction time (RT) were recorded in the 6 single and 1 mixed blocks of the DCCS. The one-dimension sorting rule (i.e. color or shape) and two-dimension sorting rules (i.e. color and shape) were respectively applied in single and mixed blocks. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to assess whether DCCS variables (single ACC, single RT, mixed ACC, and mixed RT) were correlated with the SRS-2 subscale and total T scores.
RESULTS: A total of 25 preschool children with autism aged from 57–72 months (mean age: 66.4 ± 3.7 months) and their caregivers participated in this study. All children with ASD had normal comprehension and expression language abilities and were able to follow orders and complete all procedures. The results of the study showed that the accuracies in the single (r = −0.50, p < 0.05) and mixed (r = −0.43, p < 0.05) blocks were significantly correlated with the restricted interests and repetitive behavior T scores in preschool children with ASD. However, the accuracies were not significantly associated with the other four subscales of the SRS-2 (r = −0.08 to −0.38, p = 0.06 to 0.70).
CONCLUSION: Our correlational results indicated that the preschool children with ASD who had better accuracy, not response speed, on the EF task had less limited interests and fewer stereotyped behaviors. A possible reason could be that preschool children with ASD may tend to directly choose the answer of preference without thinking inflexibly in the EF task. An inflexible EF performance may lead to a narrow range of interests or repetitive, odd behaviors, which may further cause difficulties in flexibly interacting with other children in diverse daily social contexts. Accuracy on EF tasks seems to be more important than response speed in predicting the social difficulties of preschool children with ASD. This finding is interesting, especially when compared to the finding for school-aged children. For school-aged children, response speed has been found to play a more important role than accuracy in previous studies. The accuracy of the EF task could be a preliminary indicator of social difficulties for preschool children with ASD, and it is recommended that it be included in the assessment of and intervention planning for preschool children with ASD.
References
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