Co-segregation of Social Cognition, Executive Function and Local Processing Style in Children with ASD, their Siblings and Normal Controls

• Published in: Journal of autism and developmental disorders Vol. 43; no. 12; pp. 2764 - 2778
• Main Authors: Oerlemans, Anoek M., Droste, Katharina, van Steijn, Daphne J., de Sonneville, Leo M. J., Buitelaar, Jan K., Rommelse, Nanda N. J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston Springer US 01.12.2013; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Autism; Autism Spectrum Disorders; Autistic children; Behavior; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain research; Care and treatment; Case-Control Studies; Child; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Child and School Psychology; Child clinical studies; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive - psychology; Children; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Processes; Developmental disorders; Diagnosis; Emotions; Executive Function; Female; Genetic aspects; Genetic Disorders; Genotype & phenotype; Human Body; Humans; Infantile autism; Male; Medical sciences; Memory; Neuropsychological Tests; Neurosciences; Original Paper; Pediatrics; Pervasive developmental disorders; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Public Health; Recognition (Psychology); Risk factors; Short Term Memory; Siblings; Siblings - psychology; Social aspects; Social Behavior; Social Cognition; Visual Discrimination; Netherlands; Local processing style; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Executive function; Familial segregation; Social cognition; Human; Segregation; Developmental disorder; Sibling; Autism spectrum disorder; Autism; Pervasive developmental disorder; Information processing; Cognitive style; Child
• ISSN: 0162-3257; 1573-3432
• DOI: 10.1007/s10803-013-1807-x

Cognitive research proposes that social cognition (SC), executive functions (EF) and local processing style (weak CC) may be fruitful areas for research into the familial-genetic underpinnings of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The performance of 140 children with ASD, 172 siblings and 127 controls on tasks measuring SC (face recognition, affective prosody, and facial emotion recognition), EF (inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and verbal working memory) and local processing style was assessed. Compelling evidence was found for the interrelatedness of SC and EF, but not local processing style, within individuals and within families, suggesting that these domains tend to co-segregate in ASD. Using the underlying shared variance of these constructs in genetic research may increase the power for detecting susceptibility genes for ASD.