Cognitive Characteristics of High-Function Autism Children and Normal

People with autism spectrum disorder have different cognitive and intelligence features than normal people. This study aims to evaluate and compare the cognitive profile of high-functioning autistic children and normal children. For this purpose, 25 high-functioning autistic children were selected by sampling from two centers which had been introduced by consultant and responsible of those centers and for comparing, 25 normal children from two girls and boys school were selected by random sampling. Assessment tools in this study were the Stanford Binet Intelligence Test and The PDD Assessment Scale/ Screening Questionnaire to measure autism. Finding: The results suggest that there are significant differences between autism and normal groups in cognitive scales of verbal fluid argument scale, (P=0/0001), nonverbal quantitative argument scale, (P=0/001), nonverbal visual-spatial scale, (P=0/017), non-verbal fluid argument (P=0/005). This means that autistic children in verbal and nonverbal fluid argument scales were better than normal students and students with normal growth were better in nonverbal quantitative argument and nonverbal visual-spatial scales. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups in the remaining subscales including verbal quantitative argument, verbal and nonverbal working memory, verbal and nonverbal knowledge, verbal spatial visualization scales. Given the results of this study, it is possible to have a good performance in diagnosis and rehabilitation of these children by examining cognitive characteristics of high-functioning children.