Autism is a life-long neurodevelopment disorder affecting 1 in every 150 children in the United States. Along with the three major hallmarks of autism; impairments in social interaction, impairments in communication, and repetitive and restricted stereotypes of behavior, individuals with autism face a variety of impairments that affect their everyday functioning. These impairments include, but are not limited to, impairments in motor skills, impairments in sensory-perceptual skills, and impairments in executive functioning (EF) skills. This dissertation explored these aforementioned impairments in individuals with high-functioning autism (IHFA) in three studies. The first study explored simple and complex motor and simple and complex sensory-perceptual skills differences between IHFA and typically-developing individuals (TDI) for different age groups extending from childhood to early adulthood. The study found IHFA to be impaired compared to TDI on simple and complex motor skills across the continuum of age. However, for sensory-perceptual skills IHFA impairments were found only for complex sensory-perceptual skills for an older group of IHFA. The second study explored factors that were associated with good and poor complex fine-motor skills for IHFA and TDI. Two models were generated utilizing Exhaustive Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID). In this study, we found different factors to be associated with complex fine-motor skills for IHFA versus TDI. The patterns of association for IHFA were also different from TDI. In the third study, we explored the factors that were associated with good and poor EF skills by generating two models, one for IHFA and one for TDI, utilizing Exhaustive CHAID. In this study, we found similar factors to be associated with EF skills for both IHFA and TDI, however, the factors held different levels of association with EF in each group. Findings from the first study suggest the importance of early assessment and continuous re-assessment of simple and complex motor skills and complex sensory-perceptual skills for IHFA. Findings from the second and third study offer models that have the potential to establish priorities for assessment and intervention for IHFA.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-06062008-115012 |
| Date | 15 July 2008 |
| Creators | Abu-Dahab, Sana M.N. |
| Contributors | Nancy J. Minshew, MD, Joan C. Rogers, PhD, OTR/L, Elizabeth R. Skidmore, PhD, OTR/L, Margo B. Holm, PhD, OTR/L |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-06062008-115012/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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