Cognitive Skills Promoting Social Adaptation In Autism and Asperger

Background:  Cognitive skills involve answers to solve problems. These responses are expressed in daily life activities and influence the performance of adaptive skills necessary for the child to be socially included and have personal autonomy. Qualitative failures to adapt to social demands, over time, lead to diagnoses such as autism and Asperger. In these syndromes the disabilities global adaptive course with the communication and restricted interests and activities. The manifestations vary widely in the degree of severity and intellectual level of each child and affect  the perform activities of daily living necessary for autonomy.

Objectives:  The aim this study was to identify the cognitive abilities that promote a better child social insertion with Autism and Asperger in a 12 month period.

Methods:  A total of 21 children between 3 and 12 years old, diagnosed as Autism and Asperger, were assessed and their mothers were interviewed. Children were included in regular schools or attending special Autistic schools. A period of 12 months after the first assessment, the same children took part in the second stage of this research. In individual interviews the mothers provided the data about adaptive abilities and behavior characteristics giving answers to the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales – VABS (Sparrow, Balla, Cichetti, 1984) and the Autism Behavior Checklist – ABC/ICA(Krug, Arick, Almond, 1993). Each child was individually assessed, by an experienced psychologist, trained in the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale 4th Edition (Thorndike, Hagen, Sattler, 1986).

Results:  The two assessments demonstrated that specific cognitive abilities and specific adaptive domains presented high correlations. In the first assessment, the Stanford Binet areas and total were correlated with the Communication domains, Daily life abilities, Socialization and Total score of the Vineland Scale (p < 0,05). One year later, there was a correlation between the Stanford Binet areas and total and the Communication domains, Daily life abilities, Socialization, Motor abilities and total score of the Vineland Scale (p < 0,05). 

Conclusions:  In a year’s time the logic mathematics and memory cognitive abilities promoted a better social insertion in children with Autism and Asperger. General cognitive ability promoted Communication domain.