Neuropsychological characteristics of school-age children with high-functioning autism: performance on the NEPSY

Abstract

Utilizing standardization and validation data from the NEPSY, this study presents a reanalysis of the High-Functioning Autism (HFA) versus Typical samples using IQ as a covariate. The reanalysis in the present paper should prove important to clinicians and researchers by (1) determining if the original findings can be replicated for the HFA sample when controlling for IQ, and (2) providing neuropsychological description for children with HFA versus Typical children across the NEPSY variables. The sample included 23 children with HFA who ranged in age from 5 years 5 months to 12 years 11 months (Mean = 9.59 years). The HFA Group comprised 19 males, 22 Caucasians, and was 87% right handed. All of the parents had between 12 to 15 years of education. A Typical Group was selected from the standardization sample of the NEPSY and matched on the variables of chronological age, race, gender, parental education, and region of the country. A MANCOVA revealed significant group differences on 8 of the 14 core subtests of the NEPSY, with the HFA Group performing lower than the Typical Group. While these findings significantly overlapped with those from the original validation study, significant group differences also were uncovered for the subtests of Phonological Processing, Auditory Attention and Response Set, and Speeded Naming; Comprehension of Instructions and Narrative Memory were no longer significant after controlling for IQ. When the groups were compared with respect to the number of cases falling below the 10th percentile, the HFA Group showed a higher rate of occurrence on each subtest, but only significantly so on the Arrows Subtest. These findings provide additional support for the phenotypic neurocognitive presentation of individuals with HFA, and they suggest that the NEPSY can contribute to the neuropsychological description of children with HFA.