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The present study examined the relationships between anxiety, cognitive functioning, weak central coherence, and social skills in a group of 102 children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD; Autistic disorder, Asperger's disorder, and PDD-NOS). The results indicated that children diagnosed with Asperger's disorder had significantly higher cognitive functioning and Block Design scores (i.e., weaker central coherence) compared to those diagnosed with autism or PDD-NOS. Regression analyses results showed that anxiety and cognitive functioning moderated the association between weak central coherence and social skills. For children with low cognitive functioning and high anxiety, weak central coherence was associated with poorer social skills than those with low cognitive functioning, high anxiety, and strong central coherence. For children with high cognitive functioning and high anxiety, weak central coherence was associated with better social skills than those with high cognitive functioning and strong central coherence. Implications of these findings are discussed. / acase@tulane.edu

<p>Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which some people have extraordinary talents despite some serious mental or physical disability. It is a syndrome with remarkable features, standing in stark contrast to a person’s overall character. The term savant, or idiot savant, describes a person who, in spite of low intelligence, has a skill in some specific narrow area. Savants can have a specific talent in, for instance, music, art, calendar calculation or foreign language but whatever the specific talent is, it is always connected to extraordinary memory. Savant syndrome seems to be also connected to autism or autistic characteristics. In this paper I aim to give a clear description of the savant syndrome and explain its connection to autism. Further, I present how specific theories try to describe the causes of savant syndrome, and connect the theories to results of empirical research in order to give an overall view of the syndrome’s appearance. I will also compare the theories and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the discoveries and progress that has been made within the area of savant syndrome research.</p>

Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which some people have extraordinary talents despite some serious mental or physical disability. It is a syndrome with remarkable features, standing in stark contrast to a person’s overall character. The term savant, or idiot savant, describes a person who, in spite of low intelligence, has a skill in some specific narrow area. Savants can have a specific talent in, for instance, music, art, calendar calculation or foreign language but whatever the specific talent is, it is always connected to extraordinary memory. Savant syndrome seems to be also connected to autism or autistic characteristics. In this paper I aim to give a clear description of the savant syndrome and explain its connection to autism. Further, I present how specific theories try to describe the causes of savant syndrome, and connect the theories to results of empirical research in order to give an overall view of the syndrome’s appearance. I will also compare the theories and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses with respect to the discoveries and progress that has been made within the area of savant syndrome research.

Bien que les troubles du langage formel affectent une grande partie des enfants avec Trouble du Spectre Autistique (TSA), leur nature reste encore incertaine. Certaines études postulent que le trouble observable chez ces enfants est de même nature que celui dont souffrent les enfants avec trouble spécifique du langage (TSL), tandis que d’autres argumentent en faveur de deux troubles qui diffèrent dans leur étiologie. Au centre de ce débat réside la complexité à recueillir des données sur le langage chez les enfants avec TSA, notamment quand il s’agit de participer de manière active. Dans cette étude, nous explorons l’interprétation en temps réel des indices grammaticaux chez des enfants avec TSA monolingues francophones, en nous intéressant aux pronoms clitiques objets, dont la faible production en contexte obligatoire a été proposée comme marqueur du TSL pour le français. / It is well-known that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have language impairment. However, the nature of this impairment is still largely unknown. Some studies hold that language impairment in children with ASD is of the same nature as impairment found in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), whereas others argue that SLI and language impairment in ASD may be different both in their structure and their etiology. At the heart of this debate lies the difficulty of assessing language abilities of children with ASD, especially when active participation is required. Moreover, to date, few studies have investigated formal aspects of language in children with ASD in languages other than English. In this study, we explore real-time interpretation of grammatical cues in French-speaking children with ASD, with a focus on object clitics.

The dissertation thesis addresses the topic of mathematical tasks processing in students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and problematic points of their solution. The aim of this work is to delineate methods that ASD students use to approach these tasks and solve them. We focus primarily on whether it is possible to identify different procedures than those used by typically developing students, and whether these procedures show specifics corresponding to distinct cognitive processes. In the theoretical part we provide a theoretical background for the study. Firstly, we create a frame to understand the complexity of autism, furthermore we deal with psychological theories examining the topic, and describe specifics of development of ASD students during their adolescence. Thereafter, we reflect on studies addressing mathematical skills of ASD students. Mathematics is considered as their great strength, however is not sufficiently scrutinized, as highlighted by various international studies (for example Oswald et al., 2016). The empiric part is based on qualitative methodology and pursues comparisons of mathematical tasks processing between six ASD students and typically developing peers. We strive to document differences and common points in solutions as well as to analyze cognitive processes of...