PITTSBURGH, Aug. 16 -- Autism may be a brain-wide phenomenon caused by poor connections among the brain's parts rather than by defects in one or two areas, according to investigators here.
The finding from an NIH-funded study of autistic children has implications for how those who teach and care for autistic children can help them to learn and function better, reported Nancy J. Minshew, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh in the August issue of Child Neuropsychology.
The study found that autistic children performed as well as normal children-and sometimes better-when it came to relatively simple cognitive skills such as spelling or vocabulary,
But in tasks requiring multiple domains of the brain to work together, such as reading comprehension or understanding figurative language, autistic children performed worse than their age-matched counterparts, Dr. Minshew and colleagues said.
