Successful attentional set-shifting in 2-year-olds with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

The development of executive function is necessary for flexible and voluntary control of behavior. Deficits in executive function are purported to be a primary cause of behavioral inflexibility—a core clinical symptom—in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Attentional set-shifting has traditionally been measured with the Dimensional Change Card Sort, however, this task requires following verbal instructions. Here, we used a novel visual search task that does not require verbal instructions in conjunction with eye-tracking to test attentional set-shifting in 2-year-old toddlers diagnosed with ASD (N = 29) and chronological age-matched typically developing controls (N = 30). On each trial, a relevant and an irrelevant target were embedded in a set of feature-conjunction distractors, and toddlers were tasked with searching for the relevant target. Critically, after a set of trials the targets switched roles (i.e., the previously relevant target became irrelevant, and the previously relevant target became irrelevant). We measured visual search performance prior to and following a target switch. We found that both groups of toddlers could readily switch targets, and found strikingly similar performance between typically developing toddlers and toddlers with ASD. Our results challenge the centrality of deficits in attentional set-shifting to early behavioral inflexibility in ASD.