Association between attention, nonverbal intelligence and school performance of school-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorder from a public health context in Brazil.

Background: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social interaction, restricted and repetitive behaviour, interests or activities. Difficulties in a broad spectrum of cognitive skills is often present, including attentional processes and nonverbal intelligence, which might be related to academic difficulties.

Aims: In this study, the association between attentional skills and nonverbal intelligence to school performance of children with ASD was assessed.

Attention training in children with autism spectrum disorder improves academic performance: A double-blind pilot application of the computerized progressive attentional training program.

Atypical attention has been reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with studies pointing to an increase in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder-like symptomatology. Individuals with ASD may also present academic difficulties and it is possible that they face a double-barrier for academic attainment from both core ASD symptomatology and from attention atypicalities, which are directly linked to academic performance. This raises the possibility that academic difficulties in ASD may benefit from cognitive training targeting attention.

Reduced distractor interference in neurotypical adults with high expression of autistic traits irrespective of stimulus type.

Attention atypicality is evident in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its broader phenotype with previous studies suggesting that in some cases participants can be more efficient at ignoring distracting irrelevant information. However, it is not clear to what extent this improved filtering capacity is driven by perceptual atypicality, such as local bias or atypical face processing, which is also sometimes reported in these populations. For instance, better ability to ignore the global aspect of a display could stem from a local perceptual bias rather than from improved distractor inhibition.

Diametric effects of autism tendencies and psychosis proneness on attention control irrespective of task demands.

Our capacity to attend a target while ignoring irrelevant distraction impacts our ability to successfully interact with our environment. Previous reports have sometimes identified excessive distractor interference in both autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders and in neurotypical individuals with high subclinical expressions of these conditions. Independent of task, we show that the direction of the effect of autism or psychosis traits on the suppression or rejection of a non-target item is diametrical.

Attention Training in Autism as a Potential Approach to Improving Academic Performance: A School-Based Pilot Study.

This study assessed the effectiveness of an attention intervention program (Computerized Progressive Attentional Training; CPAT) in improving academic performance of children with ASD. Fifteen 6-10 year olds with ASD attending a mainstream and a special school were assigned to an experimental (CPAT; n = 8) and active control (computer games; n = 7) group. Children were assessed pre- and post-intervention on measures of behavioural symptoms, cognitive skills and academic performance.

Age-dependent distractor suppression across the vision and motor domain.

The ability to inhibit distracting information-distractor suppression-is a fundamental process for the visual and motor systems. Whereas aging is typically linked to a general decline in cognitive processing, a specific impairment in distractor suppression is found during visual attention tasks. Despite this, the effect of aging on a human's capacity to inhibit distracting information during a motor task is currently unknown.