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

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Abstract

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often excel on visual search and crowding tasks; however, inconsistent findings suggest that this ‘islet of ability’ may not be characteristic of the entire 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.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our participants and their families for kindly offering to participate in this study. We are also grateful to the paediatricians at Melbourne Children’s Clinic for assisting with recruitment. This paper has been prepared as part of a doctoral thesis.

Funding

The work was supported by doctoral research funding from the School of Psychological Sciences and Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, 3800, Australia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychological Sciences and Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Ebony Lindor, Nicole Rinehart & Joanne Fielding

  2. Deakin University Geelong, Deakin Child Study Centre, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Geelong, VIC, Australia

    Ebony Lindor & Nicole Rinehart

  3. Department of Neuroscience, Central Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Joanne Fielding

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Contributions

EL and JF designed the study. NR advised on participant-related processes and assisted EL with recruitment. EL collected the data and performed data analysis. All authors were involved in manuscript drafting and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ebony Lindor.

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Conflict of interest

NR has received funding from the Ferrero Group, Australia and Moose Toys. Ferrero Group, Australia and Moose Toys had no role in this research including the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. NR has received speaker honorarium from Novartis (2002), Pfzier (2006) and Nutricia (2007). JF has also received research grants for Novartis (2015) and Sanofi-Genzyme (2017). NR is a Director of the Amaze Board (Autism Victoria). EL, NR and JF each declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Lindor, E., Rinehart, N. & Fielding, J. Superior Visual Search and Crowding Abilities Are Not Characteristic of All Individuals on the Autism Spectrum. J Autism Dev Disord 48, 3499–3512 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3601-2

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