Spatial working memory in children with high-functioning autism: intact configural processing but impaired capacity.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Neurodevelopmental disorders

Background:

• Visual attention and working memory are crucial for cognitive processing.
• Deficits in these areas may worsen social and communication challenges in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate spatial working memory and visual attention in school-aged children with high-functioning autism.
• To compare cognitive performance between children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children.

Main Methods:

• Children with ASD and matched TD children completed a spatial working memory task and an attentive tracking task.
• Performance was analyzed to identify differences in visual attention and working memory capacity.

Main Results:

• Children with ASD exhibited a more significant deficit in spatial working memory compared to TD children.
• The deficit in spatial working memory was more pronounced than in the attentive tracking task, despite its demands on attention and inhibition.
• Both groups were sensitive to spatial configuration changes, indicating intact spatial organization.

Conclusions:

• Attention and working memory are distinct cognitive functions.
• Children with ASD demonstrate a specific impairment in buffering visual information across brief temporal gaps.
• This suggests a targeted deficit in visual working memory rather than general attention difficulties in ASD.