Attentional networks in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder
Open accessAbstract
Background: Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit lifelong abnormalities in the adaptive allocation of visual attention. The ubiquitous nature of attentional impairments in ASD has led some authors to hypothesize that atypical attentional modulation may be a factor in the development of higher‐level sociocommunicative deficits. Method: Participants were 20 children with ASD and 20 age‐ and Nonverbal IQ‐matched typically developing (TD) children. We used the Attention Network Test (ANT) to investigate the efficiency and independence of three discrete attentional networks: alerting, orienting, and executive control. Additionally, we sought to investigate the relationship between each attentional network and measures of sociocommunicative symptom severity in children with ASD. Results: Results indicate that the orienting, but not alerting or executive control, networks may be impaired in children with ASD. In contrast to TD children, correlational analyses suggest that the alerting and executive control networks may not function as independently in children with ASD. Additionally, an association was found between the alerting network and social impairment and between the executive control network and IQ in children with ASD. Conclusions: The results provide further evidence of an impairment in the visuospatial orienting network in ASD and suggest that there may be greater interdependence of alerting and executive control networks in ASD. Furthermore, decreased ability to efficiently modulate levels of alertness was related to increased sociocommunicative deficits, suggesting that domain‐general attentional function may be associated with ASD symptomatology.
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TD children show no correlations between network scores, whereas children with ASD show significant correlations between alerting and executive control networks.
“Interestingly, whereas there were no correlations between network scores for TD children (as reported previously; see Rueda et al., 2004), children with ASD exhibited significant correlations between alerting and executive control networks suggesting that these two networks may not function as independently in children with ASD.”
From Atypical attentional networks and the emergence of autism (2013) · cites this paper as Keehn et al., 2010
Keehn et al. demonstrated similar alerting scores in children and adolescents with ASD and TD children.
“Keehn and colleagues (2010) recently employed the ANT to investigate attentional networks in ASD. The authors demonstrated similar alerting scores in children and adolescents with ASD and TD children.”
From Atypical attentional networks and the emergence of autism (2013) · cites this paper as Keehn et al., 2010
Children and adolescents with ASD were slower to shift attention.
“A more recent study using the ANT showed that children and adolescents with ASD were slower to shift attention (Keehn et al., 2010).”
From Atypical attentional networks and the emergence of autism (2013) · cites this paper as Keehn et al., 2010
Lower IQ is generally associated with reduced executive control.
“Second, as is likely the case for many of the findings discussed here and above, the intellectual level (high- versus low-functioning) of the sample is an important factor as lower IQ is generally associated with reduced executive control (Keehn et al.,2010; Liss et al., 2001; Lopez, Lincoln, Ozonoff, & Lai, 2005; Steele, Minshew, Luna, & Sweeney, 2007; Williams, Goldstein, Carpenter, & Minshew, 2”
From Atypical attentional networks and the emergence of autism (2013) · cites this paper as Keehn et al., 2010
An inefficient alerting system is related to increased sociocommunicative deficits in ASD.
“prior studies have demonstrated that an inefficient alerting system (Keehn et al., 2010) and decreased sensitivity to new information (Keehn & Joseph, 2008) are both related to increased sociocommunicative deficits in ASD.”
From Atypical attentional networks and the emergence of autism (2013) · cites this paper as Keehn et al., 2010
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Atypical attentional networks and the emergence of autism
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- Authors
- Keehn, B., Lincoln, A. J., Müller, R., & Townsend, J.
- Affiliations
- San Diego State University (US)
- Alliant University (US)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-04-26
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1251-1259
- ISSN
- 0021-9630 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7610
- PMC
- PMC3145814
- OpenAlex
- W1889426651
- Cited by
- 130
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 4.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC006155, T32DC007361)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS042639, R21NS070296, P50NS022343, R01 NS42639)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Keywords
- autism spectrum disorder, attentional networks, visual attention, alerting network, orienting network, executive function, social dysfunction, children and adolescents, nonverbal intelligence
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Attention, Child, Child Development Disorders, Pervasive, Cognition, Communication, Female, Humans, Intelligence Tests, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Orientation, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Social Behavior, Space Perception, Case-Control Studies, Executive Function
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