Formal Thought Disorder and Executive Functioning in Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Old Leads and New Avenues

Abstract

Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a disruption in the flow of thought and a common feature in psychotic disorders and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Executive dysfunction has often been associated with FTD, yet for ASD convincing evidence is lacking. This study investigated FTD and three core executive functions in 50 young children and adolescents with high-functioning ASD and 56 matched controls. Higher overall levels of FTD marked ASD compared to controls. Furthermore, in ASD decreased performance on verbal working memory was correlated with increased FTD ratings and explained a significant amount of variance of objective and subjective FTD. Verbal working memory is currently the most promising target executive function for understanding the development of idiosyncratic thought disorders in ASD.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3104-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Impairments in cognitive empathy and alexithymia occur independently of executive functioning in college students with autism

“…Briefly, this task consists of three conditions in which the participant is subsequently asked to follow the movement of a green square (condition 1: compatible response), a red square (condition 2–inhibition: incompatible response) or both (condition 3–shifiting: compatible/incompatible response) on a horizontal bar consisting of nine squares. Speed (reaction time) and accuracy (% errors) parameters were calculated to operationalize inhibition and mental flexibility (for a more detailed description, see the work by Ziermans et al (2017)).…”

“…The ANT has been used in various clinical and non-clinical populations, including ASD individuals with high IQ (e.g. Ziermans et al, 2017). The concurrent and construct validity of the BADS and its subtests are adequate, and the ecological validity is better than the ecological validity of other standard EF tests (Norris and Tate, 2000).…”

“…These squares are pointed out by a hand animation in a specific order, with increasing complexity. The number of correctly identified targets in the right order in the backward condition of the task constitutes the working memory parameter for this study (for a more detailed description, see the work by Ziermans et al (2017)).…”

Autism Symptoms, Executive Functioning and Academic Progress in Higher Education Students

“…Validity coefficients and reliability estimates of the ANT are satisfactory (Günther et al 2005; De Sonneville 2014). The ANT has been used in various clinical and nonclinical populations, including individuals with ASD (Oerlemans et al 2013;Van Der Meer et al 2012;Zmigrod et al 2013) and individuals with ASD and high IQ(Njiokiktjien et al 2001;Ziermans et al 2017).…”

The Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome and Facial Affect Processing in Adolescents With and Without Autism

“…Like APS, a childhood diagnosis of ASD is also characterized by much greater odds to develop psychosis compared to the general population (2,30). Psychotic symptoms are not included in diagnostic ASD criteria, yet many individuals diagnosed with ASD report psychotic symptoms, even at a young age (31)(32)(33)(34). Given the elevated risk for psychosis in young people with APS and ASD, as well as the shared phenomenology, direct comparisons between the two are notably absent from the literature.…”