Identifier	Thesis 1531
Author	Luftglas, Frieda.
Title	Executive function deficits in autistic individuals
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date of Publication	1999
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Abstract	Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting 1 in 1000 individuals. It results in poor social interaction, dysfunctional verbal and/or nonverbal skills, and a limited range of interests. In addition, individuals with autism also demonstrate poor abstract reasoning, inflexible rule use, perseverative behaviors, cognitive inflexibility, and poor attention. Executive functions are a complex set of skills, which include the ability to plan actions towards a goal, to use the information adaptively, to realize consequences of behavior and make judgments. Executive function is also the ability to integrate new information and use it effectively to respond to change. A breakdown in executive functioning affects goal directed behavior and the individual may not only have difficulty getting started on an activity, but once started may have difficulty changing or stopping the activity. Executive dysfunction has been studied autism. Overall, the findings reveal severe impairment of abstract thought, significant perseverative behaviors, inflexible rule use and poor attention. Individuals with autism have difficulty learning from their mistakes and are unable to come up with new strategies to correct errors or cognitive inflexibility. Poor attention has been proposed to be an underlying factor in executive dysfunction. Presently, the majority of research on executive function in autism has been done on individuals who are high functioning with IQs of 70 or above. Since this accounts for only 25% of the autistic population, little is known regarding the remaining 75%. The goals of this study are two fold. First, to examine the pattern of executive functioning deficits in low functioning autistic individuals. Second, to establish how autistic individuals compare to others with neurodevelopmental disorders. The results of this study suggested statistically significant differences between autistic group and the normal groups on tests of executive function. It appeared that autistic individuals performed poorly on a test of Visual Search to the left visual field as compared to the nonautistic and normal groups. Further, the autistic individuals performed significantly poorer on the maze test. A test of manual dexterity revealed a similar pattern with the autistic individuals showing the worst performance.
Notes	Thesis advisor: Dr. C. Charles Mate-Kole.; "Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts."; M.A.,Central Connecticut State University,1999; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-32).
Subject	Autism.
Department	Department of Psychology
Advisor	Mate-Kole, C. Charles
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Software	System requirements: PC and World Wide Web browser.
Language	eng
OCLC number	42587330
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Executive function deficits in autistic individuals

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