People with autism show significant improvements in cognitive ability from age 12 to 23 years, but their autism traits remain stable over this time, according to a new study.
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Tests of intelligenceย adjust for age, so intelligence quotients are generally expected toย remain stableย throughout a personโs lifetime. But the participantsโ IQs increased with age even as their autism traits remained stable, the researchers found.
The 35 participants whose parents reported aย regression in language skillsย early in childhood showed the largest increase in IQ, gaining about 13 IQ points on average, compared with about 7 in the whole group. The work appeared in December in theย Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
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โThe most plausible explanation to me is that children who regress are those whose otherwise underlying trajectory was one of normal-high development in terms of cognition,โ she says. โThen something happened to perturb this trajectory โ and also to cause autism.โ Then throughout adolescence, she says, these participants gradually returned to their earlier developmental trajectory.
In this way, she says, early regression may mark a unique autism trajectory, distinct from those of children with slower but steadier cognitive development.
