COGNITIVE FUNCTION IN PEOPLE WITH AND WITHOUT AUTISM

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Autism is a common developmental disorder that significantly impairs cognitive, emotional, and social functioning. Normal cognitive functioning requires appropriate regulation of attention in the service of goal directed behavior. In order to characterize how attention regulation breaks down in Autism, it is important to characterize its developmental course in healthy subjects. Operations of attention regulation include selecting, engaging, and sustaining attention to task-relevant stimuli, disengaging and shifting attention as task demands change, and inhibiting or suppressing attention to task-irrelevant stimuli. Behavioral studies of attentional mechanisms in healthy adults have identified the functional architecture of attention regulation by specifying experimental paradigms that engage these mechanisms (Bunge et al., 2002; Casey et al., 1997; Luna et al., 2001; Vaidya et al., 1998). Based on these findings, it is possible to systematically examine which attentional mechanisms may be intact and which may be impaired in Autism. By linking these findings to subjects' patterns of performance on a variety of standardized cognitive tests, measuring perceptual, language and memory abilities (e.g., IQ tests such as the Wechsler Scales for Children and Adults), it is possible to determine what types of attentional deficits are predictive of cognitive deficits found in Autism.