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Intellectual Profiles in the Autism Spectrum and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders

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Abstract

The influence of specific autism spectrum disorder (ASD) deficits in Intelligence Quotients (IQ), Indexes and subtests from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III was investigated in 445 school-aged children: ASD (N = 224) and other neurodevelopmental disorders (N = 221), matched by Full-Scale IQ and chronological age. ASD have lower scores in the VIQ than PIQ. The core distinctive scores between groups are Processing Speed Index and “Comprehension” and “Coding” subtests with lower results in ASD. ASD group with normal/high IQ showed highest score on “Similarities” subtest whereas the lower IQ group performed better on “Object Assembly”. The results replicated our previous work on adaptive behaviour, showing that adaptive functioning is positively correlated with intellectual profile, especially with the Communication domain in ASD.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (individual scholarship: SFRH/BD/102779/2014 to SM). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the study: SM GO. Performed the study: SM. Analyzed the data: SM GO. Contributed with data collection and tools: SM CC JA CM FD GO. Wrote the paper: SM GO. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Azinhaga Santa Comba, Celas, 3000-548, Coimbra, Portugal

    Susana Mouga & Guiomar Oliveira

  2. Unidade de Neurodesenvolvimento e Autismo do Serviço do Centro de Desenvolvimento da Criança, Pediatric Hospital, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Susana Mouga, Cátia Café, Joana Almeida, Carla Marques, Frederico Duque & Guiomar Oliveira

  3. Faculty of Medicine, University Clinic of Pediatrics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Frederico Duque & Guiomar Oliveira

  4. Centro de Investigação e Formação Clínica, Pediatric Hospital, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Guiomar Oliveira

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  1. Susana Mouga
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  2. Cátia Café
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  3. Joana Almeida
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Correspondence to Susana Mouga.

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Mouga, S., Café, C., Almeida, J. et al. Intellectual Profiles in the Autism Spectrum and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 46, 2940–2955 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2838-x

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