Role of Inner Speech on Serial Recall in Children with ASD: A Pilot Study Using the Luria Hand Test.

Shota Mitsuhashi,Hideyuki Okuzumi,Shogo Hirata

doi:10.1155/2018/6873412

Shota Mitsuhashi, Hideyuki Okuzumi + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6873412

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Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the relation between the effect of articulatory suppression on the serial recall and severity of social impairments among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The Luria hand test (LHT) was administered to evaluate the capacity for serial recall in 13 children with ASD. The LHT was administered under three conditions: control, under articulatory suppression, and under spatial suppression. Performance on the LHT of children with ASD was significantly lower in terms of both articulatory suppression and the spatial suppression condition. Moreover, the severity of social impairment in children with ASD was related to individual differences of effects of articulatory suppression on the LHT, but not with effects of spatial suppression. These results support the notion that dialogic inner speech which mediates complex cognitive abilities has inherently social origins.

Highlights

Over the past few decades, numerous studies have been made of memory difficulties of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)
Post hoc analysis revealed that scores of the articulatory suppression (5.27 ± 3.31) and spatial suppression condition (5.50 ± 3.53) were significantly lower than they were in the control condition (8.73 ± 4.02)
This study was designed to investigate the relation between the effect of articulatory suppression on the Luria hand test (LHT) and severities of social impairments among children with ASD using the dual task paradigm

Summary

Introduction

Over the past few decades, numerous studies have been made of memory difficulties of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Tsatsanis and Powell [1] reviewed memory research conducted with children with ASD and reported the possibility that children with ASD have intact implicit memory, but a deficit of spatial working memory. Two review articles reported deficits of spatial working memory in this population [3, 4]. Bowler et al [5] reported that this tendency found for working memory problems might reflect difficulties of attentional control or executive control rather than spatial short-term memory difficulties. Many empirical studies have revealed the existence of executive control impairments in children with ASD (see [6] for review). A growing consensus holds that memory difficulties of the children with ASD reflect higher cognitive control difficulties, not simple short-term memory difficulties [5]

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