Transdiagnostic validity of the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery across the autism-schizophrenia spectrum.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia are neurodevelopmental disorders with overlapping cognitive deficits in adulthood.
• Limited empirical work hinders treatment evaluation and cross-disorder comparisons due to a lack of standardized cognitive assessment validity.
• The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB), validated in schizophrenia, covers cognitive domains relevant to ASD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish the generalizability and transdiagnostic validity of the MCCB from schizophrenia to ASD.
• To evaluate if the MCCB demonstrates consistent measurement properties across both neurodevelopmental disorders.

Main Methods:

• Community-residing adults with schizophrenia (N=100) and ASD (N=113) completed the MCCB.
• Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the MCCB's transdiagnostic validity.
• Examined the configuration, magnitude, and directionality of relationships among MCCB measures and cognitive domains.

Main Results:

• The same MCCB measures consistently informed three cognitive domains (processing speed, attention/working memory, learning) across both groups.
• Factor structures and characteristics were largely comparable between schizophrenia and ASD groups.
• Minor group mean differences were observed in category fluency, continuous performance, and spatial span.

Conclusions:

• This study is the first to establish the validity of a standard cognitive battery in adults with ASD.
• It is also the first to demonstrate the comparability of a cognitive battery across ASD and schizophrenia.
• The MCCB is applicable to ASD and supports standardized cognitive outcome evaluation across the autism-schizophrenia spectrum.