Neurocognitive function and joint attention ability in young children with autism spectrum disorder versus developmental delay

Studies have shown that young children with autism are not impaired on prefrontal tasks relative to what would be expected for their mental age, raising questions about the executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism. These studies did not include ventromedial prefrontal tasks, however. The present study examined whether young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are impaired on ventromedial prefrontal tasks, and whether performance on such tasks is correlated with a core autism symptom, joint attention ability. Seventy-two 3- to 4-year-old children with ASD, 34 3- to 4-year-old developmentally delayed children, and 39 12- to 46-month-old typically developing children, matched on mental age, were administered ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal tasks and joint attention tasks. Children with ASD performed similarly to comparison groups on all executive function tasks, indicating that at this early age, there is no autism-specific pattern of executive dysfunction. Ventromedial, but not dorsolateral, prefrontal task performance was strongly correlated with joint attention ability, however. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is hypothesized to play a role in the development of joint attention and possibly some aspects of the autistic syndrome.     

关键反应训练对自闭症儿童的干预有效性——来自认知神经科学的证据

关键反应训练(Pivotal Response Training,PRT)是一种基于应用行为分析、具有循证实践支持的自闭症儿童干预方法。有关PRT干预的认知神经科学研究多使用小样本的高功能自闭症儿童进行实验,PRT干预后,自闭症儿童的行为指标显著改善,大脑连通性改变,同时其前额叶皮层(尤其是左腹外侧前额叶皮层和左背外侧前额叶皮层)、梭状回、后颞上沟等脑区对生物运动的激活增加。未来的研究应当增加使用ERP、fMRI等认知神经科学技术探寻PRT有效性的生理标记物,以准确预测PRT对自闭症儿童的干预效果,推动自闭症儿童的干预向着精准医学的方向发展。     

提取成功与提取努力的神经机制探讨

提取成功和提取努力是情节记忆提取过程中所包含的两个重要加工成分。以往研究表明,在提取过程中所一致激活的脑区包括内例颞叶、前额皮层和后顶皮层,其中内侧颞叶与后顶皮层主要负责成功提取,而前额皮层与提取努力的联系更为密切一些。但不同脑区的不同部位可能对提取加工有着不同的贡献,未来研究将进一步细化它们的具体功能。     

自闭症认知缺陷的神经机制研究进展

本文对自闭症认知神经机制研究进行了系统回顾。结果表明 ,自闭症的心理推测能力缺陷可能与右侧眶额皮质、左内侧前额皮质及包括杏仁核在内的内侧颞叶等脑区的损伤有关 ;中枢性统合不足可能与小脑病变有关 ;执行功能障碍可能与额叶、基底节异常有关。现有研究结果相当不一致 ,有关上述三种理论及其相互关系的探讨还存在很多争议。     

The Role of Age and Verbal Ability in the Theory of Mind Task Performance of Subjects with Autism

A number of studies have reported that most children with autism fail theory of mind tasks. It is unclear why certain children with autism pass such tests and what might be different about these subjects. In the present study, the role of age and verbal ability in theory of mind task performance was explored. Data were pooled from 70 autistic, 34 mentally handicapped, and 70 normal young subjects, previously tested for a number of different studies. The analysis suggested that children with autism required far higher verbal mental age to pass false belief tasks than did other subjects. While normally developing children had a 50% probability of passing both tasks at the verbal mental age of 4 years, autistic subjects took more than twice as long to reach this probability of success (at the advanced verbal mental age of 9-2). Possible causal relations between verbal ability and the ability to represent mental states are discussed.     

Drawing insight from pictures: the development of concepts of false drawing and false belief in children with deafness,normal hearing,and autism

Theory-of-mind concepts in children with deafness, autism, and normal development (N = 154) were examined in three experiments using a set of standard inferential false-belief tasks and matched sets of tasks involving false drawings. Results of all three experiments replicated previously published findings by showing that primary school children with deafness or autism, aged 6 to 13 years, scored significantly lower than normal-developing 4-year-old preschoolers on standard misleading-container and unseen-change tests of false-belief understanding. Furthermore, deaf and autistic children generally scored higher on drawing-based tests than on corresponding standard tests and, on the most challenging of the false-drawing tests in Experiment 2, they significantly outperformed the normal-developing preschoolers by clearly understanding their own false intentions and another person's false beliefs about an actively misleading drawing. In Experiment 3, preschoolers outperformed older deaf and autistic children on standard tasks, but did less well on a task that required the drawing of a false belief. Methodological factors could not fully explain the findings, but early social and conversational experiences in the family were deemed likely contributors.     

Early risk, attention, and brain activation in adolescents born preterm

The relations among early cumulative medical risk, cumulative environmental risk, attentional control, and brain activation were assessed in 15-16-year-old adolescents who were born preterm. Functional magnetic resonance imaging found frontal, temporal, and parietal cortex activation during an attention task with greater activation of the left superior-temporal and left supramarginal gyri associated with better performance. Individual differences in early cumulative risk are related to patterns of brain activation such that medical risk is related to left parietal cortex activation and environmental risk is related to temporal lobe activation. The findings suggest that early risk is related to less mature patterns of brain activation, including reduced efficiency of processing and responding to stimuli.     

自动与控制计时系统脑机制研究

脑成像与神经心理学的研究均提供了存在自动计时系统与控制计时系统的证据。对时间信息自动加工的研究表明,自动计时系统与运动系统关系密切,均包含小脑、基底神经节和辅助运动区。对时间信息控制加工的研究表明,包括背外侧前额叶皮质的额叶一纹状体回路为认知控制计时系统与工作记忆的基础,时间信息加工的注意调节系统较复杂,涉及区域主要包括前辅助运动区、右岛盖、顶叶、前扣带皮质。自动加工与控制加工并不是截然分离的,两个系统激活区域和激活强度存在差异,两个系统时间范围不存在清晰的分界点。     

A Mental Age-Matched Comparison Study of Delay of Gratification in Children with Down Syndrome

The performance of 25 children with Down syndrome on delay of gratification tasks was compared with that of a mental age-matched group of typically developing children. Delay tasks included both other- and self-imposed tasks. Children with Down syndrome were significantly less able to delay gratification than the comparison group on two of the three tasks. Receptive language was associated with delay on the self-imposed task for the typically developing group but not for children with Down syndrome. It is hypothesised that there may be a lag in the development of self-regulation that is greater than the lag between chronological and mental age for children with Down syndrome, with expressive language playing a role in this lag. The practice of using mental age as the method for matching groups of children with Down syndrome with typically developing children is called into question by the results of this study.     

Effect on development of proportional reasoning skill of physical experience and cognitive abilities associated with prefrontal lobe activity

The present study tested the hypothesis that maturing prefrontal lobes play a role in the development of proportional reasoning skill because the prefrontal lobes are involved in the inhibition of task‐irrelevant information and the representation of task‐relevant information. The hypothesis that reasoning development is in part dependent upon physical experience was also tested. Students (all males) who failed to solve a diagnostic proportions task were administered several tests of prefrontal lobe functions. The students were then randomly assigned to manipulative or verbal tutoring groups. Both groups received a series of individual testing, tutoring and testing sessions on proportional reasoning. As predicted, performance on the prefrontal lobe tasks (measures of inhibiting ability, planning ability, dissembedding ability, and working memory capacity) significantly predicted performance on proportional reasoning tasks following tutoring. Students' computational skills were not a significant predictor. Also, the manipulative group's proportional reasoning performance was significantly higher than that of the verbal tutoring group. Therefore, the present results provide support for the hypothesis that maturing prefrontal lobes and physical experience play roles in the development of proportional reasoning skill. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 1171–1182, 2000     

自闭症者颞上沟发育异常与其社会交往障碍探讨

自闭症谱系障碍中最为常见的临床症状是社会交往和交流障碍。已有研究发现,颞上沟在言语加工、生物运动和心理理论中发挥着重要作用,而自闭症者在这几方面都存在不同程度的缺陷。本文综合已有关于自闭症者颞上沟的结构异常和功能缺陷的研究,试图梳理出颞上沟在自闭症者的言语加工、生物运动和心理理论缺损中可能产生的作用机制。     

Close interrelation of motor development and cognitive development and of the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex

Motor development and cognitive development may be fundamentally interrelated. Contrary to popular notions that motor development begins and ends early, whereas cognitive development begins and ends later, both motor and cognitive development display equally protracted developmental timetables. When cognitive development is perturbed, as in a neurodevelopmental disorder, motor development is often adversely affected. While it has long been known that the striatum functions as part of a circuit with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, it is suggested here that the same is true for the cerebellum and that the cerebellum may be important for cognitive as well as motor functions. Like prefrontal cortex, the cerebellum reaches maturity late. Many cognitive tasks that require prefrontal cortex also require the cerebellum. To make these points, evidence is summarized of the close co-activation of the neocerebellum and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in functional neuroimaging, of similarities in the cognitive sequelae of damage to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the neocerebellum, of motor deficits in "cognitive" developmental disorders, and of abnormalities in the cerebellum and in prefrontal cortex in the same developmental disorders.     

Neural Systems for Rapid Automatized Naming in Skilled Readers: Unraveling the RAN-Reading Relationship

The majority of children and adults with reading disabilities exhibit pronounced difficulties on naming-speed measures such as tests of rapid automatized naming (RAN). RAN tasks require speeded naming of serially presented stimuli and share key characteristics with reading, but different versions of the RAN task vary in their sensitivity: The RAN letters task successfully predicts reading ability, whereas the RAN objects task does not reliably predict reading after kindergarten. In this study we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate the neural substrates that may underlie performance on these tasks. In two scans during the same test session, adult, average readers covertly rapidly named objects or letters or passively viewed a fixation matrix of plus signs. For both rapid naming tasks compared with fixation, activation was found in neural areas associated with eye movement control and attention as well as in a network of structures previously implicated in reading tasks. This reading network included inferior frontal cortex, temporo-parietal areas, and the ventral visual stream. Whereas the inferior frontal areas of the network were similarly activated for both letters and objects, activation in the posterior areas varied by task. The letters task caused greater activation in the angular gyrus, superior parietal lobule, and medial extrastriate areas, whereas object naming only preferentially activated an area of the fusiform gyrus. These results confirm that RAN tasks recruit a network of neural structures also involved in more complex reading tasks and suggest that the RAN letters task specifically pinpoints key components of this network.     

Neurodevelopmental Correlates of Theory of Mind in Preschool Children

Baseline electroencephalogram (EEG) data were collected from twenty-nine 4-year-old children who also completed batteries of representational theory-of-mind (RTM) tasks and executive functioning (EF) tasks. Neural sources of children's EEG alpha (6–9 Hz) were estimated and analyzed to determine whether individual differences in regional EEG alpha activity predicted children's RTM performance, while statistically controlling for children's age and EF skills. Results showed that individual differences in EEG alpha activity localized to the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) and the right temporal–parietal juncture (rTPJ) were positively associated with children's RTM performance. These findings suggest that the maturation of dMPFC and rTPJ is a critical constituent of preschoolers' explicit theory-of-mind development.     

Third-Party Sociomoral Evaluations in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

We examined explicit and implicit processes in response to third-party moral transgressions in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty 4- to 7-year-old children with ASD and 19 typically developing controls evaluated dynamic visual stimuli depicting intentional or accidental harm to persons or damage to objects. Moral evaluations, eye fixations, and pupil dilations toward the stimuli were collected. Results indicate a preserved capacity to understand the mental states of perpetrators and an implicit moral sensitivity to the third-party harms in children with ASD. Nonetheless, children with ASD showed specific sensitivity and emotional arousal when viewing damage to objects. These findings contribute to the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of moral reasoning in ASD and its possible association with the autistic symptoms.     

自闭症儿童语言康复训练的思考

儿童自闭症是广泛性发育障碍的一种亚型,以男性多见,起病于婴幼儿期。自闭症儿童属于特殊儿童,他们在某些方面与正常的儿童相比,处于一定的弱势,对自闭症儿童的关怀和重视,需要建立长效机制。尤其是,针对自闭症儿童的语言康复训练,更应该引起足够的重视和关注。本文以自闭症儿童语言康复训练的思考为题,围绕自闭症儿童的语言特点、康复训练的现状、存在的不足,以及相关的思考等内容展开论述,得出了相应的结论,具有重要的意义。     

The conceptual basis for referential word meaning in children with autism

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the representation of substantive word meanings in children with autism. The subjects included 3 groups of autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children, who were matched on verbal mental age. The subjects participated in 2 experiments investigating their comprehension of words for basic level and superordinate level categories. The 3 groups were equivalent in their performance in both experiments. They also showed the same patterns of overextension and underextension errors that were related to a prototype representation of the underlying concepts. These findings suggest that semantic knowledge for concrete objects is represented and organized in similar ways in autistic, retarded, and normal children and that previous findings on cognitive deficits in autistic children are more likely related to their inability to use cognitive representations in an appropriate and flexible manner.     

自闭症儿童的心理理论发展及其与言语能力的关系

研究用5个信念任务测量心理理论能力,用皮博迪图片词汇测验测量言语能力,比较12名自闭症儿童和同等言语能力的28名正常儿童的表现,并分析了心理理论和言语能力的相关。结果表明:(1)自闭症儿童的心理理论发展显著落后于同等言语智力的正常儿童;(2)自闭症和正常儿童的信念理解发展序列基本一致;(3)心理理论和言语能力保持中度相关,但控制年龄因素后的偏相关不显著。本研究支持心理理论发展的领域特殊性观点。     

Autistic Children''s Talk about Psychological States: Deficits in the Early Acquisition of a Theory of Mind

Spontaneous speech samples collected from 6 autistic and 6 age- and language-matched Down syndrome controls over the course of 1-2 years were analyzed for the presence of language referring to different psychological states. Utterances containing lexical terms for desire, perception, emotion, and cognition were functionally coded to distinguish conversation uses of such terms from actual reference to mental states, and for perception terms to distinguish reference to perception from calls for joint attention. The main findings were that autistic children were comparable to the Down syndrome control subjects in their talk about desire, perception and emotion. However, they used significantly less language to call for attention and to refer to cognitive mental states. These results are discussed in relation to current theories about the nature of the psychological deficit in autism.