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Published on: December 7, 2018
Individual Differences in the "Cognitive-Adaptive Gap" Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Latent Profile
Ning Shao1, Lingling Wu1, Wenhao Li1
1Department of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Children's and Adolescents' Health and Diseases, Hangzhou 310052, China.
Abstract:
This study investigates the "competence-performance gap" between cognitive ability (measured by the WISC-IV) and actual adaptive performance (measured by the ABAS-II) in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and examines the moderating role of family environment, specifically parental education levels. We applied Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to cross-sectional data from 3246 children with ASD (aged 6-16 years). The analysis identified three distinct cognitive-adaptive subgroups: the Balanced High-Functioning group (33%), the Classic Mismatch group (44%), and the Cognitively Vulnerable group (23%). Notably, the Classic Mismatch group was characterized by adaptive performance that significantly trailed cognitive potential. Multinomial logistic regression revealed that maternal education-but not paternal education-significantly predicted a child's likelihood of being in the "Balanced High-Functioning" group. This moderating effect was especially pronounced during the school-age years. These findings highlight the critical role of environmental factors in the translation of intellectual potential into practical social adaptive functioning, providing theoretical support for targeted family-based interventions.
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