Two intact executive capacities in children with autism: Implications for the core executive dysfunctions in the disorder

Many studies have shown that children with autism perform at a much lower l evel than control subjects on tests of executive functioning, defined as ta sks requiring subjects to hold information in mind while suppressing a prep otent response. These tasks have invariably required subjects to (a) follow arbitrary and novel rules and (b) make a nonverbal response. We report tha t when one of these features is absent, children with autism are not impair ed relative to controls. They perform at a similar level to normally develo ping children on the "tubes" task (containing no arbitrary and novel rules) and on the day/night task (in which the output is verbal). Results are con sistent, at least, with the hypothesis that children with autism are challe nged by executive tasks because they are unlikely to encode rules in a verb al form.