No abstract

A novel battery (BAFE; Valeri et al., 2015) was used in order to assess three Executive Function (EF) abilities (working memory, inhibition and shifting) in a sample of 27 intellectually able preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) compared with 27 typically developing children matched on age and nonverbal IQ. Differences in EF skills were analyzed in participants with distinct ASD symptom severity. Children with ASD performed worse than typical controls on both set-shifting and inhibition, but not on visuo-spatial working memory. Additionally, children with more severe ASD symptoms showed a worse performance on inhibition than children with milder symptoms. These results confirm the presence of EF deficits and highlight a link between ASD symptoms and EF impairments in preschool age. Response to Reviewers: COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR: > Reviewer #1: In this study the authors investigated the core executive functions (EF) working memory, inhibition, and shifting using the BAFE test battery in 27 highfunctioning preschoolers with ASD and 27 age and nonverbal IQ matched typically developing children. Differences in these three core EFs were also assessed across participants with distinct ASD symptom severity. Results showed that children with ASD performed worse on the BAFE subtests measuring inhibition and shifting than typically developing children whereas performance on the BAFE subtest measuring working memory was not affected. Furthermore, children with more severe ASD symptomatology showed worse performance on the BAFE inhibition subtest than Powered by Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® from Aries Systems Corporation children with milder symptomatology. The authors suggest that these results confirm the presence of EF deficits in preschoolers with ASD and highlight a link between ASD symptomatology and EF. The authors need to be complimented for their efforts in collecting difficult to obtain data from such a young group of children. In general, this is a concise and well-written paper, methods are sound, results are nicely presented, and the findings are discussed in a clear manner. However, before recommending the paper for publication I have a couple of suggestions for improvement. These are listed below in the order that they appear in the paper.

Performances on the Five-Point Test of 161 Italian children aged 6 to 11 years were investigated, along with phonemic fluency, visual-motor integration, visual perception, motor coordination, visuospatial memory, and fluid intelligence. Five-Point Test accuracy was significantly related to phonemic fluency and visual-motor integration, while phonemic fluency was linked to motor coordination. The two fluency measures increased linearly with age, but the developmental progression of Five-Point Test accuracy was less influenced by age. Different age effects were also found on the relationship between fluid intelligence and the two fluency measures. The inspection of qualitative aspects of Five-Point Test performance (errors and strategies) suggested that strategy usage enhanced both productivity and accuracy in children; age-related changes were observed in the relationship between the number of errors and the total number of designs produced.

Handwriting is a complex activity that involves continuous interaction\ud between lowerlevel perceptual-motor and higher-level cognitive processes. All\ud handwriting models describe involvement of executive functions (EF) in handwriting\ud development. Particular EF domains associated with handwriting include\ud maintenance of information in working memory, inhibition of prepotent responses,\ud and shifting and sustaining of attention. Generativity, an EF domain that has not\ud been extensively studied, may play a role in the acquisition and automation of\ud handwriting. We hypothesized that neuropsychological performances and handwriting\ud fluency would be mutually associated, and that visuospatial generativity\ud could have a specific role in handwriting speed. We enrolled 96 children who\ud completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. The study found that\ud handwriting speed was associated with visuospatial fluency, which involves behavioural\ud execution and initiation. In learning and performing handwriting, there is an\ud inherent non-exclusive role of fine motor skills

This study analyzes the psychometric characteristics of an Italian test of executive function (EF) tests assessing inhibition, set-shifting and working memory (core executive functions) for preschool children. BAFE is based on a concept accredited by the majority of EF research: a representation articulated in a profile of neuropsychological processes relatively independent. The main goal of this study was to assess the multiple EF components of BAFE Test in 3 to 6-year-old children and its sensivity, validity and reliability to age differences. In order to evaluate the convergent validity of the BAFE test, a correlation between different tests assessing similar neuropsychological constructs were performed. The framework of the relationships between the tests for children shows associations and dissociations compatible with the theoretical hypotheses on executive functions. BAFE test offers additional measures for clinical evaluations for preschoolers. It could introduce new clinical practice that add to clinical observations or questionnaires a rigorous measurement tools with good psychometric properties.