The Utility of the EFCT within the Autism Population
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Advisor
Erin Kang
Access Type
Event
Start Date
26-4-2024 9:45 AM
End Date
26-4-2024 10:44 AM
Description
Executive functioning (EF) refers to the “capacity to regulate thinking, behavior, and emotions” (Kenworthy, 2020). Social interactions present the greatest need for EF skills, including the ability to generate plans, regulate behavior and emotions, and show flexibility (Kenworthy, 2020). While autistic people experience both EF and social challenges, there are few measures that evaluate the impact of EF in social settings (Gioia, 2002). The Executive Functioning Challenge Task (EFCT) was developed to assess challenges with social behavior, planning, and flexibility within neurotypical and neurodiverse youth (Kenworthy, 2020). The EFCT consists of four tasks, puzzle, clay, drawing and planning, which encourage social interaction with the examiner while viewing their planning and flexibility skills, and corrections of directions. This study examined the feasibility of this measure in autistic compared to non-autistic youth. Seventy-four youth (Mage=11.68, SDage=3.27; 55.4% male; IQ=106.75; 47.3% white, 6.8% black, 12.2% Asian/South Asian/MEN, 23% Biracial) participated in this study. Forty-two youth were in the autism group based on a diagnostic measure (ADOS-2; Lord et al., 2012). Of the seventy-four participants, only three (2 autistic and 1 non-autistic) were not able to complete the EFCT. This supports the feasibility of using this measure in autistic samples to assess EF in social contexts, with whom it is important to use multi-method, multi-informant assessment to measure differences in this population. Thus, the EFCT may be a useful tool to gather valuable information on socially-relevant EF performance in autistic children and should be further examined for validity and reliability in this population.
The Utility of the EFCT within the Autism Population
Executive functioning (EF) refers to the “capacity to regulate thinking, behavior, and emotions” (Kenworthy, 2020). Social interactions present the greatest need for EF skills, including the ability to generate plans, regulate behavior and emotions, and show flexibility (Kenworthy, 2020). While autistic people experience both EF and social challenges, there are few measures that evaluate the impact of EF in social settings (Gioia, 2002). The Executive Functioning Challenge Task (EFCT) was developed to assess challenges with social behavior, planning, and flexibility within neurotypical and neurodiverse youth (Kenworthy, 2020). The EFCT consists of four tasks, puzzle, clay, drawing and planning, which encourage social interaction with the examiner while viewing their planning and flexibility skills, and corrections of directions. This study examined the feasibility of this measure in autistic compared to non-autistic youth. Seventy-four youth (Mage=11.68, SDage=3.27; 55.4% male; IQ=106.75; 47.3% white, 6.8% black, 12.2% Asian/South Asian/MEN, 23% Biracial) participated in this study. Forty-two youth were in the autism group based on a diagnostic measure (ADOS-2; Lord et al., 2012). Of the seventy-four participants, only three (2 autistic and 1 non-autistic) were not able to complete the EFCT. This supports the feasibility of using this measure in autistic samples to assess EF in social contexts, with whom it is important to use multi-method, multi-informant assessment to measure differences in this population. Thus, the EFCT may be a useful tool to gather valuable information on socially-relevant EF performance in autistic children and should be further examined for validity and reliability in this population.