Abstract
As executive functioning (EF) is especially sensitive to age-related cognitive decline, EF was evaluated by using a multi-method assessment. Fifty males (60–85 years) with a late adulthood autism spectrum condition (ASC) diagnosis and 51 non-ASC males (60–83 years) were compared on cognitive tests across EF domains (cognitive flexibility, planning, processing speed, and working memory) and a self- and proxy report of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-Adult Version. While no objective performance differences emerged, autistic males and their proxies did report more EF challenges than non-ASC males on the subjective measure. In order to know how to support the older autistic men who received their ASC diagnosis in late adulthood with their daily life EF challenges, it is important to understand what underlies these subjective EF problems.
Highlights
Aging in adulthood is typically associated with cognitive decline
To our knowledge only seven papers reported on objective clinical executive functioning (EF) measures of a diagnosed autism spectrum condition (ASC) adult sample of which approximately 50% of the participants was over 45 years of age (Braden et al 2017; Davids et al 2016; Geurts and Vissers 2012; Lever and Geurts 2016a; Powell et al 2017; Tse et al 2019; Walsh et al 2019)
For many measures, there was only anecdotal evidence for the lack of a difference between the groups compared to the alternative hypothesis that there was an actual difference
Summary
Aging in adulthood is typically associated with cognitive decline. One cognitive domain that seems especially sensitive to age-related cognitive decline is executive functioning (EF; e.g., Diamond 2013). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (2020) 50:1380–1390 domain visual episodic memory) and reduced age-related differences (generativity), but predominantly similar agerelated differences (all other cognitive domains) This was the first study to report that age may disproportionally affect specific cognitive functions in autistic adults. Their proxies observed that the autistic adults experienced daily life EF problems In yet another recent and similar study (Tse et al 2019; NASC = 28, Nnon-ASC = 27, age 50–72 years) the ASC group was generally slower and performed less well on visual WM as compared to the non-ASC group. As in the majority of included participants in each of the aforementioned studies received an ASC diagnosis in (late) adulthood (see Abbott et al 2018) age-of-diagnosis seems not to be a likely explaining factor for the inconsistency in findings
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