High functioning children with autism spectrum disorder: A novel test of multitasking [An article from: Brain and Cognition]

This digital document is a journal article from Brain and Cognition, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
High functioning children with a diagnosis of autism or Asperger's syndrome (HF-ASD) often experience difficulties organising goal-directed actions in their day-to-day lives, requiring support to schedule daily activities. This study aimed to capture these everyday difficulties experimentally using multitasking, a methodology that taps into the cognitive processes necessary for successful goal-directed activities in everyday life. We investigated multitasking in children with HF-ASD using a novel multitask test, the Battersea Multitask Paradigm. Thirty boys participated in the study, 14 with HF-ASD and 16 typically developing controls, matched for age and IQ. Group differences in multitasking were observed. Participants with HF-ASD were less efficient at planning, attempted fewer tasks, switched inflexibly between tasks and broke performance rules more frequently than controls.