Superior Visual Search and Crowding Abilities Are Not Characteristic of All Individuals on the Autism Spectrum.

We examined whether performance on these tasks changed as a function of motor proficiency in children with varying levels of ASD symptomology. Children with high ASD symptomology outperformed all others on complex visual search tasks, but only if their motor skills were rated at, or above, age expectations. For the visual crowding task, children with high ASD symptomology and superior motor skills exhibited enhanced target discrimination, whereas those with high ASD symptomology but poor motor skills experienced deficits. These findings may resolve some of the discrepancies in the literature. PMID: 29790002 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: J Autism Dev Disord Source Type: research