The level and nature of autistic intelligence III: Inspection time

Abstract

Across the autism spectrum, level of intelligence is highly dependent on the psychometric instrument used for assessment, and there are conflicting views concerning which measures best estimate autistic cognitive abilities. Inspection time is a processing speed measure associated with general intelligence in typical individuals. We therefore investigated autism spectrum performance on inspection time in relation to two different general intelligence tests. Autism spectrum individuals were divided into autistic and Asperger subgroups according to speech development history. Compared to a typical control group, mean inspection time for the autistic subgroup but not the Asperger subgroup was significantly shorter (by 31%). However, the shorter mean autistic inspection time was evident only when groups were matched on Wechsler IQ and disappeared when they were matched using Raven's Progressive Matrices. When autism spectrum abilities are compared to typical abilities, results may be influenced by speech development history as well as by the instrument used for intelligence matching.