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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Autism seems to affect the entire brain, not just the areas dealing with communication, social behavior, and reasoning as once thought.
A new study from the Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism (CPEA) reveals autism affects a wide range of skills including sensory perception, movement and memory. The research suggests various parts of the brain of an autistic patient have a hard time working together to finish complex tasks.
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Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine tested 56 children with autism and 56 children without the disorder. All participants were 8 to 15 years old.
Results reveal the children with autism did just as well or better than the other children in basic functioning. But they had a hard time with complex tasks. For example, the autistic kids were very good at finding small objects in picture books but found it difficult distinguish between the faces of similar looking people. Researchers also found children with autism were very proficient at spelling and grammar but had a hard time understanding complex figures of speech like idioms and metaphors.
"These findings show that you can't compartmentalize autism under three basic areas," reports the study's senior author, Nancy Minshew, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "Our paper strongly suggests that autism is not primarily a disorder of social interaction, but a global disorder affecting how the brain processes the information it receives, especially when the information becomes complicated."
Dr. Minshew concludes when trying to understand autism, researchers need to look at multiple brain areas, not just those dealing with communication, social behavior, and reasoning.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Child Neuropsychology, 2006;12:279-298
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