The short-form of the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) was administered to 1,919 5-year-old children (1,002 boys/917 girls) and 4,374 school-aged children (ages 7-14, 2,221 boys/2,153 girls) from the same city to verify applicability of the ASSQ short-form in 5-year-old children. Fifty-nine of the 5-year-olds were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, 37 boys/22 girls). The results of confirmatory factor analysis confirmed factor structure to be the same for 5-year-olds as it was for school-aged children; however, multiple-group analysis demonstrated that estimates of factor loadings differed among groups. Furthermore, two-way (age (5-year-olds: school-age) ×gender (male: female)) analysis of variance found main effects of age and gender, but no significant effects of interaction. Meanwhile, multiple linear regression analysis with ASD diagnosis as the dependent variable and the three factors of the ASSQ short-form as independent variables demonstrated that each factor could significantly predict a diagnosis. Further, Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis by gender demonstrated favorable accuracy of identification (AUC=boys .92, girls .91), demonstrating the possibility that the ASSQ short-form can identify ASD in 5-year-old children with a certain degree of accuracy despite differences in scores and modes from school-age children. The findings suggested validity of cut-off scores of 3 for boys (sensitivity .94, specificity .81) and 4 for girls (sensitivity .73, specificity. 94) for screening purposes, and a cut-off score of 8 for both boys (sensitivity .49, specificity .99) and girls (sensitivity .54, specificity .98) for identifying cases strongly suspected of ASD. Positive precision value at the latter cutoff score was 61% for boys and 53% for girls, suggesting functionality of the cut-off score indicating a relatively strong suspicion of ASD.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the characteristics of neurocognitive function-especially visual attentional function-in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through performance on the CogHealth Battery in comparison to children exhibiting typical development.

Methods: The subjects comprised 37 children with ASD and 131 typically developing children aged 7-15 years. The CogHealth Battery was used to assess short-term memory, working memory and visual attentional function. Performance on each task was compared in terms of reaction time, accuracy rate, commission error, and omission error. In children with ASD, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) was conducted within one month of administering the CogHealth.

Results: In children with ASD, accuracy in the One Card Learning task was significantly associated with full IQ. Performance in the Divided Attention (DA) task was better in children with ASD than in typically developing children; accuracy of DA was significantly higher, commission errors were significantly fewer, and reaction time was significantly slower than in typically developing children.

Discussion: Superior performance in the DA task could be a reflection of the cognitive function characteristics of children with ASD, such as high visual search capacity, and greater focus on locally-oriented perceptual operations.