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Intellectual development in autism spectrum disorders: new insights from longitudinal studies
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Intellectual development in autism spectrum disorders: new insights from longitudinal studies

Giacomo Vivanti, Josephine Barbaro, Kristelle Hudry, Cheryl Dissanayake and Margot Prior
Frontiers in human neuroscience, v 7, pp 354-354
05 Jul 2013
PMID: 23847518
url
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00354View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0 Open

Abstract

Life Sciences & Biomedicine Neurosciences Neurosciences & Neurology Psychology Science & Technology Social Sciences
The presence/absence of Intellectual Disability (ID) is considered to be the most critical factor affecting outcomes in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the question of the specific nature of ID in ASD has received little attention, with the current view being that ID is a comorbid condition (i.e., one that is unrelated in etiology and causality from the ASD itself). Recent advances in developmental neuroscience, highlighting the importance of early exposure to social experiences for cognitive development, support an alternative view; that ID in ASD might emerge as a consequence of severe social-communication deficits on the experience-dependent mechanisms underlying neurocognitive development. We tested this prediction in two independent samples of young children with ASD (Ns = 23 and 60), finding that children with greater ASD severity at an initial assessment were more likely to present with poorer cognitive outcomes at a later assessment, irrespective of initial cognitive level. The results of this proof of principle study suggest that ASD symptom severity contributes to the extent to which the environmental input required to support typical brain development can be processed by the individual, so that the risk of developing ID increases as the number and severity of ASD social-communicative impairments increase.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Neurosciences
Psychology
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