IMR Press / FBL / Volume 6 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.2741/allen

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Attention function and dysfunction in autism
Show Less
1 Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, USA
2 Department of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093
3 Research on the Neuroscience of Autism, Children's Hospital Research Center, 8110 La Jolla Shores Drive, Rm #200, La Jolla, CA 92037
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2001, 6(3), 105–119; https://doi.org/10.2741/allen
Published: 1 February 2001
Abstract

Impairments of attention are among the most consistently reported cognitive deficits in autism, and they continue to be a key focus of research. This is in no doubt due to the importance of normal attention function to the development of many so-called "higher level" cognitive operations, and to the likely involvement of attention dysfunction in certain clinical features of autism. Autistic individuals display a wide range of attentional abilities and deficits across the many domains of attention function, including selective, sustained, spatial, and shifting attention operations. This unique pattern of attention function and dysfunction has profound implications for the development and treatment of autistic children. The present review will explore this pattern of attentional strengths and weaknesses and the neural defects that underlie them.

Share
Back to top