Sustained Selective Attention Research Articles

Generalization of auditory expertise in audio engineers and instrumental musicians

From auditory perception to general cognition, the ability to play a musical instrument has been associated with skills both related and unrelated to music. However, it is unclear if these effects are bound to the specific characteristics of musical instrument training, as little attention has been paid to other populations such as audio engineers and designers whose auditory expertise may match or surpass that of musicians in specific auditory tasks or more naturalistic acoustic scenarios. We explored this possibility by comparing students of audio engineering (n = 20) to matched conservatory-trained instrumentalists (n = 24) and to naive controls (n = 20) on measures of auditory discrimination, auditory scene analysis, and speech in noise perception. We found that audio engineers and performing musicians had generally lower psychophysical thresholds than controls, with pitch perception showing the largest effect size. Compared to controls, audio engineers could better memorise and recall auditory scenes composed of non-musical sounds, whereas instrumental musicians performed best in a sustained selective attention task with two competing streams of tones. Finally, in a diotic speech-in-babble task, musicians showed lower signal-to-noise-ratio thresholds than both controls and engineers; however, a follow-up online study did not replicate this musician advantage. We also observed differences in personality that might account for group-based self-selection biases. Overall, we showed that investigating a wider range of forms of auditory expertise can help us corroborate (or challenge) the specificity of the advantages previously associated with musical instrument training.

Sustained selective attention in adolescence: Cognitive development and predictors of distractibility at school

Despite much research into the development of attention in adolescence, mixed results and between-task differences have precluded clear conclusions regarding the relative early or late maturation of attention abilities. Moreover, although adolescents constantly face the need to pay attention at school, it remains unclear whether laboratory measures of attention can predict their ability to sustain attention focus during lessons. Therefore, here we devised a task that was sensitive to measure both sustained and selective attention and tested whether task measures could predict adolescents’ levels of inattention during lessons. In total, 166 adolescents (aged 12–17 years) and 50 adults performed a sustained selective attention task, searching for letter targets while ignoring salient yet entirely irrelevant distractor faces, under different levels of perceptual load—an established determinant of attention in adults. Inattention levels during a just preceding classroom lesson were measured using a novel self-report classroom distractibility checklist. The results established that sustained attention (measured with response variability) continued to develop throughout adolescence across perceptual load levels. In contrast, there was an earlier maturation of the effect of perceptual load on selective attention; load modulation of distractor interference was larger in the early adolescence period compared with later periods. Both distractor interference and response variability were significant unique predictors of distractibility in the classroom, including when controlling for interest in the lesson and cognitive aptitude. Overall, the results demonstrate divergence of development of sustained and selective attention in adolescence and establish both as significant predictors of attention in the important educational setting of school lessons.

Auditory attention influences trajectories of symbol–speech sound learning in children with and without dyslexia

The acquisition of letter–speech sound correspondences is a fundamental process underlying reading development, one that could be influenced by several linguistic and domain-general cognitive factors. In the current study, we mimicked the first steps of this process by examining behavioral trajectories of audiovisual associative learning in 110 7- to 12-year-old children with and without dyslexia. Children were asked to learn the associations between eight novel symbols and native speech sounds in a brief training and subsequently read words and pseudowords written in the artificial orthography. We then investigated the influence of auditory attention as one of the putative domain-general factors influencing associative learning. To this aim, we assessed children with experimental measures of auditory sustained selective attention and interference control. Our results showed shallower learning trajectories in children with dyslexia, especially during the later phases of the training blocks. Despite this, children with dyslexia performed similarly to typical readers on the post-training reading tests using the artificial orthography. Better auditory sustained selective attention and interference control skills predicted greater response accuracy during training. Sustained selective attention was also associated with the ability to apply these novel correspondences in the reading tests. Although this result has the limitations of a correlational design, it denotes that poor attentional skills may constitute a risk during the early stages of reading acquisition, when children start to learn letter–speech sound associations. Importantly, our findings underscore the importance of examining dynamics of learning in reading acquisition as well as individual differences in more domain-general attentional factors.

Sustained selective attention to chromatic information enhances visuocortical gain at the population level.

Prior work in selective attention research has shown that colour-selective attention enhances neural activity in visuocortical areas sensitive to the attended colour while suppressing activity in areas sensitive to ignored colours. However, it is currently unclear whether this effect is limited to attending to specific colour hues or extends to chromatic information more broadly. To investigate this question, we used steady-state visual evoked potentials (ssVEPs) frequency tagging to quantify participants' visuocortical responses to specific elements embedded in arrays of flickering, randomly moving mid-complex patterns. Participants were instructed to attend to either coloured or greyscale patterns while ignoring the others. We found that attending to either coloured or greyscale patterns produced robust increases in ssVEP amplitudes both compared to ignored stimuli and to baseline. There was however no evidence of suppressed responses to ignored patterns. These findings demonstrate that attentional selection based on the presence or absence of chromatic information prompts selectively enhanced visuocortical processing but this selective amplification is not accompanied by suppression of unattended stimuli. Findings are consistent with theoretical notions that predict strong competition between specific exemplars within a given feature dimension, such as red or green, but weak competition between broadly defined stimulus categories, such as chromatic versus non-chromatic.

“Attentive Kindergarten”: A Small Group Intervention Boosting Attention among Kindergarten Children

(1) Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a small group intervention program named “Attentive Kindergarten” (AK), aimed at enhancing attention functioning among typically developing preschool-aged children. The program focuses on improving sustained attention, selective spatial attention, and response inhibition based on cognitive training principles. (2) Methods: The study’s sample included 51 children, 15 of whom received the AK intervention and 36 of whom served as a control group. Computerized cognitive tests were used for pre- and postintervention evaluations to assess sustained attention, response inhibition, and selective spatial attention. Quantitative analyses were conducted to examine the differences between the two groups as a result of the intervention program. (3) Results: The AK group demonstrated improvements in all attention functions that were measured. These improvements were larger than those obtained in the control group. (4) Conclusions: The results suggest that cognitive training programs, such as Attentive Kindergarten, can enhance attention functioning in young children. The present findings have important implications for early intervention programs aimed at improving young children’s cognitive skills, which, in turn, can decrease the likelihood of future attention problems and other related difficulties.

Attentional modulation of neural sound tracking in children with and without dyslexia.

Auditory selective attention forms an important foundation of children's learning by enabling the prioritisation and encoding of relevant stimuli. It may also influence reading development, which relies on metalinguistic skills including the awareness of the sound structure of spoken language. Reports of attentional impairments and speech perception difficulties in noisy environments in dyslexic readers are also suggestive of the putative contribution of auditory attention to reading development. To date, it is unclear whether non-speech selective attention and its underlying neural mechanisms are impaired in children with dyslexia and to which extent these deficits relate to individual reading and speech perception abilities in suboptimal listening conditions. In this EEG study, we assessed non-speech sustained auditory selective attention in 106 7-to-12-year-old children with and without dyslexia. Children attended to one of two tone streams, detecting occasional sequence repeats in the attended stream, and performed a speech-in-speech perception task. Results show that when children directed their attention to one stream, inter-trial-phase-coherence at the attended rate increased in fronto-central sites; this, in turn, was associated with better target detection. Behavioural and neural indices of attention did not systematically differ as a function of dyslexia diagnosis. However, behavioural indices of attention did explain individual differences in reading fluency and speech-in-speech perception abilities: both these skills were impaired in dyslexic readers. Taken together, our results show that children with dyslexia do not show group-level auditory attention deficits but these deficits may represent a risk for developing reading impairments and problems with speech perception in complex acoustic environments. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Non-speech sustained auditory selective attention modulates EEG phase coherence in children with/without dyslexia Children with dyslexia show difficulties in speech-in-speech perception Attention relates to dyslexic readers' speech-in-speech perception and reading skills Dyslexia diagnosis is not linked to behavioural/EEG indices of auditory attention.

Staying and Returning dynamics of young children's attention.

In this paper, we decompose selective sustained attending behavior into components of continuous attention maintenance and attentional transitions and study how each of these components develops in young children. Our results in two experiments suggest that changes in children's ability to return attention to a target locus after distraction ("Returning") play a crucial role in the development of selective sustained attention between the ages of 3.5-6 years, perhaps to a greater extent than changes in the ability to continuously maintain attention on the target ("Staying"). We further distinguish Returning from the behavior of transitioning attention away from task (i.e., becoming distracted) and investigate the relative contributions of bottom-up and top-down factors on these different types of attentional transitions. Overall, these results (a) suggest the importance of understanding the cognitive process of transitioning attention for understanding selective sustained attention and its development, (b) provide an empirical paradigm within which to study this process, and (c) begin to characterize basic features of this process, namely its development and its relative dependence on top-down and bottom-up influences on attention. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Young children exhibited an endogenously ability, Returning, to preferentially transition attention to task-relevant information over task-irrelevant information. Selective sustained attention and its development were decomposed into Returning and Staying, or task-selective attention maintenance, using novel eye-tracking-based measures. Returning improved between the ages of 3.5-6 years, to a greater extent than Staying. Improvements in Returning supported improvements in selective sustained attention between these ages.

Measuring children's sustained selective attention and working memory: validity of new minimally linguistic tasks.

This study introduces visual tasks using nonlinguistic stimuli that measure sustained selective attention (SSA) and working memory (WM), two constructs foundational to learning and associated with developmental disorders in children. Using an argument-based approach to validation, we examine whether each task (a) measures distinct constructs, (b) shows internal consistency, (c) captures a range of performance, and (d) relates to development as indexed by age. Participants included 71 children, ages 4-10, of whom 12 had parental concern for language/learning. The SSA task presented spatial locations within a long and uninteresting task, following the continuous performance task paradigm. The WM task presented paired location sequences of increasing length, incorporating key elements of the n-back and complex span paradigms. Controlling for age, tasks were found to be minimally associated with each other (r = .26), suggesting related but distinct constructs. Internal consistency was high, with split-half reliability of .94 (SSA) and .92 (WM); the stability of these estimates was supported by bootstrapping simulations. Task performance was evenly distributed, with minimal floor or ceiling effects within this age range. Performance was positively related to age (SSA r = .49; WM r = .53). Exploratory correlations with a measure of parental concern were significant for SSA but not WM. The results show that these new tasks can be used to measure children's SSA and WM in a visual domain with minimal linguistic influence. These tasks capture developmental changes in the early school years. Further investigation can examine their utility for classifying children with developmental disorders.

Assessing the Effectiveness of the MOVER Program for Treating Attention Deficit in Children (MOVER: Movement Opportunities Through Vestibular Engagement Rhythm)

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of participation in a movement- to music program on the attention span of elementary school-aged children who have attention deficits. The hypothesis was that participants would demonstrate improved attention on the Test of Sustained Selective Attention (TOSSA) (Kovacs, 2015). Methods: This quantitative study involved nine children who participated in four movement-to-music sessions with a staggered stop over a period of six weeks. The study incorporated a single group pre-test/post-test design, and a non-parametric Sign Test was utilized to analyze data from the TOSSA subcategories of concentration, detection, response inhibition, and test-taking time tolerance. Supporting qualitative data was also collected through peer debriefing, field notes, and a reflexive journal. Results: TOSSA results found that the movement-to-music program can significantly improve the attention of children who have attention deficits. Discussion: This study demonstrated positive implications for occupational therapy practice and for policy change regarding the inclusion of vestibular/proprioceptive movement opportunities available for children, especially those who have attention deficits.

Development of visual sustained selective attention and response inhibition in deaf children.

Studies of deaf and hard-of-hearing (henceforth, deaf) children tend to make comparisons with typically hearing children for the purpose of either identifying deficits to be remediated or understanding the impact of auditory deprivation on visual or domain general processing. Here, we eschew these clinical and theoretical aims, seeking instead to understand factors that explain variability in cognitive function within deaf children. A total of 108 bilingual deaf children ages 7-13 years who use both English and American Sign Language (ASL) participated in a longitudinal study of executive function (EF) development. We report longitudinal data from a visual continuous performance task that measured sustained selective attention and response inhibition. Results show that the impact of deafness on these processes is negligible, but that language skills have a positive relationship with both: better English abilities were associated with better selective sustained attention, and better ASL abilities with better response inhibition. The relationship between sustained selective attention and English abilities may reflect the cognitive demands of spoken language acquisition for deaf children, whereas better ASL abilities may promote an "inner voice," associated with improved response inhibition. The current study cannot conclusively demonstrate causality or directionality of effects. However, these data highlight the importance of studies that focus on atypical individuals, for whom the relationships between language and cognition may be different from those observed in typically developing populations.

The Multifaceted Nature of Bilingualism and Attention.

Attention has recently been proposed as the mechanism underlying the cognitive effects associated with bilingualism. However, similar to bilingualism, the term attention is complex, dynamic, and can vary from one activity to another. Throughout our daily lives, we use different types of attention that differ in complexity: sustained attention, selective attention, alternating attention, divided attention, and disengagement of attention. The present paper is a focused review summarizing the results from studies that explore the link between bilingualism and attention. For each level of attention, a brief overview of relevant theoretical models will be discussed along with a spotlight on paradigms and tasks used to measure these forms of attention. The findings illustrate that different types and levels of attention are modified by the variety of bilingual experiences. Future studies wishing to examine the effects of bilingualism on attention are encouraged to embrace the complexity and diversity of both constructs rather than making global claims about bilingualism and attention.

Immediate Effect of Ujjayi Pranayama on Attention and Anxiety among University Students: A Randomised Self-control Study

Introduction: Elevated level of anxiety and low attention in university students has detrimental effects on their academic performance and well-being. The practice of pranayama is considered to enhance the attention and reduce anxiety of individuals. Though, ujjayi pranayama has a relaxing and tranquilising effect, its effects on attention and anxiety in students has not been explored yet. Aim: To assess the immediate effect of ujjayi pranayama on sustained attention, selective attention and state-trait anxiety in university students. Materials and Methods: The present study was a randomised self-control study in which 34 students were randomly divided into group A and group B using the lottery method. Inclusion criteria were students in the age range of 18-35 years, conversant in English, willing to participate and having at least two years of proficiency in pranayama practice. The assessment and intervention were conducted at the yoga hall of Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anausandhana Samsthana, Bangalore, Karnataka, India, in the month of April 2015. The duration of intervention was for 10 minutes. On day one, group A practiced ujjayi pranayama for eight minutes and two minutes of breath observation. Students in group B were asked to sit in a meditative posture with eyes open. The order was reversed on the day second. Students from both groups were assessed just before and immediately after the intervention using the Digit Letter Substitution Test (DLST), Six Letter Cancellation Test (SLCT), and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results: Statistical analysis showed, a significant difference in STAI scores (9.00±3.05 vs. 10.29±3.23, p=0.005). No significant difference was observed in other variables in between group comparison. Likewise, the within group analysis showed a significant difference in pre and post scores of DLST (53.68±9.35 vs 59.65±9.66, p<0.001), SLCT (30.21±10.29 vs 33.71±11.67, p=0.007), and STAI (11.5±3.40 vs 9.00±3.05, p<0.001) in the group A as well as a significant difference in pre and post scores of DLST (55.82±10.44 vs 60.00±9.51, p=0.002) and STAI (10.94±3.19 vs 10.29±3.23, p=0.024) in the group B. Conclusion: The present study suggested that ujjayi pranayama improves sustained and selective attention and reduces the state-trait anxiety of university students. However, further studies to assess the chronic effect of ujjayi pranayama with greater sample size and advanced tools are required to support the present finding.

Working on Cognitive Functions in a Fully Digitalized Multisensory Interactive Room: A New Approach for Intervention in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The feasibility of working on cognitive functions with children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) inside Multisensory Interactive Rooms (MIRs) has been poorly investigated, even if sensory atypicalities are common in ASD and usual intervention rooms could represent a challenging sensory setting for patients with ASD. We hypothesized that the possibility to calibrate the sensory stimulation offered by this type of environment, able to promote a positive emotional state in patients with ASD, can consequently favor the interaction with the therapist and the motivation towards activities targeting cognitive functions. High- and low-functioning children and low-functioning adolescents/adults underwent five sessions in a fully digitalized MIR, working on sustained attention, selective attention, association, single inhibition, receptive communication, verbalization, and turn. We developed specific protocols calibrated for sensory stimulation and difficulty level based on the characteristics of the participants. We found statistically significant improvements in all functions, except association, in the children’s group. Therefore, a fully digitalized MIR seems suitable for intervention on cognitive functions in ASDs, but further investigations are needed to better address possible differences related to age and functioning level.

Effect of sustained selective attention on steady-state visual evoked potentials.

Visual-spatial selective attention enhances the processing of task-relevant visual events while suppressing the processing of irrelevant ones. In this study, we employed a frequency-tagging paradigm to investigate how sustained visual-spatial attention modulates the first harmonic and second harmonic steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs). Unlike previous studies, that investigated stimulation durations of 10s or less, we tested a 30-s period. SSVEPs were elicited by simultaneously presenting to the right and left visual hemifields two pattern reversal checkerboard stimuli modulating at 7.14Hz and 11.11Hz. Participants were cued to selectively attend to one visual hemifield while ignoring the other. Behavioral results indicated that participants selectively attended to the cued visual hemifield. When participants attended to the visual stimuli, there were larger second harmonic SSVEPs but no attentional modulation of first harmonics. The results are consistent with the proposal that neural populations underlying first, and second harmonics have distinct functional roles, i.e., first harmonics' mechanisms preserve stimulus properties and are resistant to attentional gain, whereas second harmonics mediate attentional modulation. This interpretation is supported by a gain control theory of selective attention.

Towards a computational phenomenology of mental action: modelling meta-awareness and attentional control with deep parametric active inference.

Meta-awareness refers to the capacity to explicitly notice the current content of consciousness and has been identified as a key component for the successful control of cognitive states, such as the deliberate direction of attention. This paper proposes a formal model of meta-awareness and attentional control using hierarchical active inference. To do so, we cast mental action as policy selection over higher-level cognitive states and add a further hierarchical level to model meta-awareness states that modulate the expected confidence (precision) in the mapping between observations and hidden cognitive states. We simulate the example of mind-wandering and its regulation during a task involving sustained selective attention on a perceptual object. This provides a computational case study for an inferential architecture that is apt to enable the emergence of these central components of human phenomenology, namely, the ability to access and control cognitive states. We propose that this approach can be generalized to other cognitive states, and hence, this paper provides the first steps towards the development of a computational phenomenology of mental action and more broadly of our ability to monitor and control our own cognitive states. Future steps of this work will focus on fitting the model with qualitative, behavioural, and neural data.

Language and Executive Function in Preschoolers With Developmental Language Disorder: The Role of Self-Directed Speech

Purpose: Our goal was to examine the relationship between language and executive function in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and/or developmental language disorder (DLD) with a specific focus on how language in the form of self-directed speech (SDS) affects executive functioning in this population. Method: Participants included thirty-one 4- and 5-year-old children with DLD. Children completed a visual, computer-based continuous performance task (CPT) that tapped their sustained selective attention. SDS children produced during this task was coded off-line for intelligibility, task relevancy, and whether it was regulatory. Regression analyses were used to characterize the relationship between children's performance on the CPT and their SDS. Results: The majority of SDS that children produced during the CPT was task relevant and regulatory, but there was individual variability in the total amount of SDS produced. Children's percentage of regulatory SDS was a significant predictor of their CPT performance. Conclusions: Because SDS is positively associated with executive function performance but has delayed development among children with SLI and/or DLD, clinicians have an opportunity to support SDS development in children. We discuss specific approaches and clinical activities for supporting SDS development in early childhood.

Do Executive Attentional Processes Uniquely or Commonly Explain Psychometric g and Correlations in the Positive Manifold? A Structural Equation Modeling and Network-Analysis Approach to Investigate the Process Overlap Theory.

One of the best-established findings in intelligence research is the pattern of positive correlations among various intelligence tests. Although this so-called positive manifold became the conceptual foundation of many theoretical accounts of intelligence, the very nature of it has remained unclear. Only recently, Process Overlap Theory (POT) proposed that the positive manifold originated from overlapping domain-general, executive processes. To test this assumption, the functional relationship between different aspects of executive attention and the positive manifold was investigated by re-analyzing an existing dataset (N = 228). Psychometric reasoning, speed, and memory performance were assessed by a short form of the Berlin Intelligence Structure test. Two aspects of executive attention (sustained and selective attention) and speed of decision making were measured by a continuous performance test, a flanker task, and a Hick task, respectively. Traditional structural equation modeling, representing the positive manifold by a g factor, as well as network analyses, investigating the differential effects of the two aspects of executive attention and speed of decision making on the specific correlations of the positive manifold, suggested that selective attention, sustained attention, and speed of decision making explained the common but not the unique portions of the positive manifold. Thus, we failed to provide evidence for POT’s assumption that the positive manifold is the result of overlapping domain-general processes. This does not mean that domain-general processes other than those investigated here will not be able to show the pattern of results predicted by POT.

EEG-Based Closed-Loop Neurofeedback for Attention Monitoring and Training in Young Adults.

Attention is an important mechanism for young adults, whose lives largely involve interacting with media and performing technology multitasking. Nevertheless, the existing studies related to attention are characterized by low accuracy and poor attention levels in terms of attention monitoring and inefficiency during attention training. In this paper, we propose an improved random forest- (IRF-) algorithm-based attention monitoring and training method with closed-loop neurofeedback. For attention monitoring, an IRF classifier that uses grid search optimization and multiple cross-validation to improve monitoring accuracy and performance is utilized, and five attention levels are proposed. For attention training, we develop three training modes with neurofeedback corresponding to sustained attention, selective attention, and focus attention and apply a self-control method with four indicators to validate the resulting training effect. An offline experiment based on the Personal EEG Concentration Tasks dataset and an online experiment involving 10 young adults are conducted. The results show that our proposed IRF-algorithm-based attention monitoring approach achieves an average accuracy of 79.34%, thereby outperforming the current state-of-the-art algorithms. Furthermore, when excluding familiarity with the game environment, statistically significant performance improvements (p < 0.05) are achieved by the 10 young adults after attention training, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed serious games. Our work involving the proposed method of attention monitoring and training proves to be reliable and efficient.

Examining the Role of Attention Deficits in the Social Problems and Withdrawn Behavior of Children With Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Symptoms.

Previous studies have found that sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms are often associated with social problems and withdrawn behavior. However, the possible neuropsychological mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. Some studies have also found that SCT symptoms are related to deficits in sustained attention and selective attention. However, no study has examined whether attention deficits are related to social problems and withdrawn behavior in children with SCT. This study was the first to examine the neuropsychological correlates of social problems and withdrawn behavior among children with SCT symptoms. The results showed that sustained attention measure (omission) predicted the severity of social problems and withdrawn behavior in children with SCT even after controlling for symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Selective attention measure (response latency mean) was also found to predict the severity of social problems. These results suggest that the social problems commonly exhibited by children with SCT are related to deficits in sustained attention and attentional control. Thus, our results provide an initial support to the link between attention deficits and social problems among children with SCT.

ADHD severity as a predictor of cognitive task performance in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

BackgroundIn recent years, a number of studies have begun to explore the nature of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this study, we examined the relationship between both symptoms of ADHD and symptoms of ASD on cognitive task performance in a sample of higher-functioning children and adolescents with ASD. Participants completed cognitive tasks tapping aspects of attention, impulsivity/inhibition, and immediate memory. AimsWe hypothesized that children with ASD who had higher levels of ADHD symptom severity would be at higher risk for poorer sustained attention and selective attention, greater impulsivity/disinhibition, and weaker memory. Methods and proceduresThe sample included 92 children (73 males) diagnosed with ASD (Mean Age = 9.41 years; Mean Full Scale IQ = 84.2). Outcomes and resultsUsing regression analyses, more severe ADHD symptomatology was found to be significantly related to weaker performance on tasks measuring attention, immediate memory, and response inhibition. In contrast, increasing severity of ASD symptomatology was not associated with higher risk of poorer performance on any of the cognitive tasks assessed. Conclusions and implicationsThese results suggest that children with ASD who have more severe ADHD symptoms are at higher risk for impairments in tasks assessing attention, immediate memory, and response inhibition—similar to ADHD-related impairments seen in the general pediatric population. As such, clinicians should assess various aspects of cognition in pediatric patients with ASD in order to facilitate optimal interventional and educational planning.