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Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Gepubliceerd in:

05-07-2018 | Original Paper

Utilitarian Attention by Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder on a Filtering Task

Auteurs: Darlene A. Brodeur, Jillian Stewart, Tamara Dawkins, Jacob A. Burack

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders | Uitgave 12/2018

Abstract

The findings are evidence that persons with ASD benefit more than typically developing (TD) persons from spatial framing cues in focusing their attention on a visual target. Participants were administered a forced-choice task to assess visual filtering. A target stimulus was presented on a screen and flanker stimuli were presented simultaneously with or after the target, with varying stimuli onset asynchronies (SOAs). Regardless of SOA, TD children showed the expected distracting effects with slower reaction times (RTs) when flankers were at closer distances from the target. However, children with ASD displayed shorter RTs in the conditions in which the stimuli were presented simultaneously or with a short SOA. These findings are interpreted as reflecting utilitarian attention among children with ASD.

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An a priori power analysis based on Cohen’s moderate effect size (.25) for the interaction effects suggests that a total N of 24 would be needed for a power of .80. In addition, a post hoc power analysis for detection of the interaction effect, using our estimates of effect size from the data, revealed a power estimate of .86 (minimum is .80). Given our interest in the interaction effects with group, these estimates suggest that the number of participants allows for the detection of an appropriate effect size.

Differences between distractor types were not analyzed as part of the primary analyses because we had no specific hypotheses related to distractor type, effects of type were controlled with the experiment design, and sample size did not warrant the inclusion of another independent variable. However, an exploratory analysis of distractor type revealed that all patterns described in the primary analyses held, and that the magnitude of these effects was in general greater when the distractors were dissimilar than when they were similar. In addition, this difference was more pronounced for the TD group than the ASD group. These effects need to be explored further in future studies.

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Titel: Utilitarian Attention by Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder on a Filtering Task
Auteurs: Darlene A. Brodeur
Jillian Stewart
Tamara Dawkins
Jacob A. Burack
Publicatiedatum: 05-07-2018
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders / Uitgave 12/2018
Print ISSN: 0162-3257
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-3432
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3619-5

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