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Dual-task performance in adults with autism

Introduction. Based on previous evidence of executive function deficits in autism, it was hypothesised that people with autism would demonstrate a pattern of spared abilities on the slave system of working memory, although demonstrating an overt deficit of the central executive. Method. The performance of a group of adults with autism (n = 16) and that of a matched control group of healthy volunteers (n = 16) was compared over a range of executive tasks including dual-task performance. Results. The results are broadly consistent with the initial hypothesis: the performance on the dual task of the people with autism was impaired with respect to that of the control group. However, no differences emerged between the two groups in the performance of individual components of the task. Conclusion. All executive tests used in this study predicted the inclusion in the autistic group but there was not a high correlation among executive scores.