Lecture 21: executive functions

Social communication, interaction, specialized and intense, congenital cute, social communication, verbal, non verbal, social, relationships, effort, restricted, repetitive, consistency, sensory processing,

Autism: is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition characterized by differences in ___ and ___ and ___ and ___ interests, it is ___ and has no ___. Key features: 1. Difficulties with ___: difficulties with ___ and ___ communication, understanding ___ cues, forming ___. It is not natural for them, it requires cognitive ___. 2. ___ and ___ behavior patterns and interests: engaging in ___ acts, movements, routines, preference for ___ in daily activites. 3. Unique ___ : over or under sensitivity to all kinds of sensory stimuli, affecting the way they exoerienece their environment.

Executive functions

Autistic traits are linked to different ___.

Higher order, goal directed, management, internal, organized decisions, distractions, problems, adapt

Executive functions are an umbrella term which includes a range of ___ cognitive functions which are responsible size for ___ behavior. It is the brain’s ___ system, ___ CEO. It helps us stay ___, make ___! Resist ___, solve ___, ___ when things change,

Mental health, physical health, quality of life, school readiness, job success, marital harmony, public safety

Executive functions adddecf 7 things. Name them

Addictions, adhd, conduct, depression, ocd, schizophrenia

Mental health : they are impaire pd in mental disorders like ___ and ___, ___ disorder, ___! ___, ___.

Obesity, oevereating, substance

Low EFs are associated with physical health, such as ___, ___ ___ abuse, etc,

Success, IQ levels, inhibition, impulse

EFs predict school ___ beyond ___, which are not as important as EFs. Some people are very smart but not successful in life because they have low ___ and___ control

Inhibitory control, distracting, brakes, working memory, cognitive flexibility, sarcasm

Three core EFs: 1. ___: which enables the suppression of ___ stimuli in order to reach a goal (the ___). 2. ___: allows us to retain, update and manipulate info. 3. ___: allows us to switch between tasks and adjust to changes in context, how adaptive you are, the more cognitive flexibility, the more ___ in life. It further allows you to take the POV or perspective of your conversational partner. Allows you to understand ___ (not take the literal meaning’.

Reasoning, problem, planning

Together the EFs form the foundation for ___, ___ solving and ___. All our decision go through them.

Pfc, anterior, 30, 3, 25, childhood, adolescence, over time

EFs are primarily supported by the ___, which is ___ in the brain and takes up to ___% of the space. It is further one of the last regions to fully mature, it continues developing for approximately ___ decades (___yo), it undergoes the most substantial development during ___ and ___. EFs tend to get better ___.

Stroop task

Give me an example of an EF task

Inhibitory control, automatic, adhd

The stroop tasks measure the ___ component. We are prone to errors and delayed reaction times in the incongruent task because we need to ignore the word and name the color. However, since reading is an ___ process, it is hard, color info is not. ___ people consistently poorer results because fhe disorder directly related to IC so they cannot suppress the stimuli.

Focused, temptations, long term

Inhibitory control allows us to stay ___ on boring and repetitive tasks, to resist impulsive purchases and stick to our budget, to say no to junk food, to resist ___ and regulate behavior for ___ goals.

Lifelong outcomes, 3-11, in school drugs, risky, mental, physical,

Early inhibitory control predicts ___. 32 year study of 1000 people. Those with high inhibitory control at ___-___ were more likely to stay ___, avoid ___ and ___ behavior, have better ___ and ___ health, earn more, follow laws, be haoojef p, etc. effects held after controlling for iq, social class, etc.

Marshmallow

Another way to test for inhibitory control is through the ___ task for children

Urges, prison population

Without inhibition we may struggle to resist ___ or stop ourselves from doing harmful things even when we know they are wrong. It seems EFs are impaired in the general ___.

Mental, instructions, academic success, spelling, math, reading, stm

Working memory allows us to hold a question in mind while reading a long paragrsph to find the answer, to do ___ math, to recall what someone just said, etc. they further allow us to follow multi steps ___. Measurements of working memory taken at school entry are strong indicators of later ___: it predicts achievement in ___! ___! ___ better than IQ scores and ___ ability.

Single construct, differentiate

EFs appear as a ___ in children but___ later in life.

Metaphors, sarcasm, irony, empathy, latest

Cognitive flexibility allows us to try a new route to get to work when there is traffic to adjust our opinion after heaving new convincing evidence, switch between work tioldm etc, understand ___> ___{ ___l further, it is linked with ___. It is one of the ___ functions to develop in children: you need both IC and WM first.

Infancy, 3-12, 9, working memory, 12, continued, subtle, decreases

In childhood, EFs begging to develop in ___ with strong development from ___ to ___yo, at ___ moths already we have some ___ abilities. We get near adult performance around the ages of ___ or later. For adolescence, we get ___ but ___ gains. Aging leads to ___ , which begin later in adulthood. Older adults experience slower stopping speeds, difficulties with suppressing irrelevant info,

Mixed, cross sectional, mixed, EF, development, developmental,

Many studies do not track developmental trajectories in autistic individuals and often rely on P___ age groups which complicated the interpretations of findings, also ___ so cannot speculate same changed can be observed throughout a life span. In childhood we get ___ results, some relief that autistic chukdren experience difficulties across all ___ components, which persist throughout ___, others found some ___ delays but overall no changes too much from neurotypical

Gradual improvements, heterogenous, variability, spectrum

For adolescence, there is some evidence that shows ___ in EF over time, though they are typically mire limited. We get mixed results because ausitic groups are highly ___ meaning there is high ___ and it is a ___> which means every individual nips unique

Linear, high, low, oversimplified, average out

The spectrum of autism is not ___: there is no such thing as low autism (functioning) of high autism (___ functioning). This model is not supported by research because it is ___, some autistic individuals have more difficulties or better performance than neurotypicals on a range of functions. When we collect autistic people for studies, we usually don’t consider the variability so they kind of all just ___.

Controlled, standardized, ecological validity, OFC, lab

Traditional EFs tasks are high,y ___ and ___, and lack real world confex (meaning they have low ___): may not capture the complexcisgy of everyday EF demands, many odious wifh difficulties on their ___ (brain area) Mai’s still perform well on ___ tasks but not everyday,

Informant based, brief, ecological validity, a subjective

---

measures alike the ___ provide more comprehensive assessments of EF sand can identify differences s not captures by more traditional tasks, they have more ___ but we cannot over rely on them because they are. ___.

Single

The best approach is to therefore use both in a ___ study,

Cold, emotional demands, hot, emotional motivational, TBI, ventromedial ofc, hot, cold, 12, dorsolaterak, cold, mid adolescence, ventromedial, hot, semowrate, continuum, hot

There is a distinction between ___ EFs (without ___) and ___ ones ( with ____ and ___ demands). Patients with …… and lesions to the ___ mighg have issues with ___ not ___ ones. I’m typical development, adult like performance if reached around ___ yo in the ___ Pfc for ___ vs ___ and fhe ___ OFC for ___ EFs, but fhey are not ___, they exist on a ___ withing a single item. In autism, ___ EFs are more affected because they rehire emotion regulation which is difficult for them.