Individuals with autism experience specific deficits in the area of executive function. A differentiated view of executive function was recently described by Metcalfe and Mishel, in which a distinction was made between hot, affective components and cold more purely cognitive, non-affective components. The "Hot/Cold" distinction of executive function was examined in a group of children with autism in relation to a group of typically developing children matched on verbal, pattern and Leiter mental ages. Two hot (Gamble and Delay of Gratification) and two cold tasks (DCCS and SOP) were administered. Children with autism successfully completed fewer trials of the SOP, irrespective of the matching variable, and experienced more difficulty switching rules on the DCCS in relation to typically developing children when matched on non-verbal and performance mental ages. No differences were found on the hot executive function tasks, except for the group matched on VMA. These findings underscore the importance of using multiple matching groups in the study of persons with autism, and provide evidence for cold rather than hot executive function deficits as a primary in autism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.79807 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Russo, Natalie |
| Contributors | Burack, Jacob Ari (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001984194, proquestno: AAIMQ88681, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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