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High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample

High Intellectual Potential (HIP) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are two different conditions sharing some clinical and neurobiological features. The aim of the present study was to characterize a sample of HIP children (n: 16; M/F: 14/2; median age: 10 years) in comparison to those with HFA (n:...

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Autores principales: Riccioni, Assia, Pro, Stefano, Di Criscio, Lorena, Terribili, Monica, Siracusano, Martina, Moavero, Romina, Valeriani, Massimiliano, Mazzone, Luigi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8699491/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34942909
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11121607
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author Riccioni, Assia
Pro, Stefano
Di Criscio, Lorena
Terribili, Monica
Siracusano, Martina
Moavero, Romina
Valeriani, Massimiliano
Mazzone, Luigi
author_facet Riccioni, Assia
Pro, Stefano
Di Criscio, Lorena
Terribili, Monica
Siracusano, Martina
Moavero, Romina
Valeriani, Massimiliano
Mazzone, Luigi
author_sort Riccioni, Assia
collection PubMed
description High Intellectual Potential (HIP) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are two different conditions sharing some clinical and neurobiological features. The aim of the present study was to characterize a sample of HIP children (n: 16; M/F: 14/2; median age: 10 years) in comparison to those with HFA (n: 17; M/F: 16/1; median age: 13 years) and to neurotypically developed (NTD) children (n: 10; M/F: 4/6; median age: 11 years) from a clinical and neurophysiological perspective. Specifically, a standardized clinical assessment of cognitive and adaptive skills, autistic symptoms, executive functions and behavioral features was performed. Moreover, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded, referring specifically to the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 paradigm. Our data highlighted the presence of similarities between the intellectually gifted individuals and the ones with autism (i.e., a nonhomogeneous intellective profile, an adaptive skills impairment, subthreshold autistic symptoms and increased perfectionism). Interestingly, a distinct neurophysiological characterization between groups came out, with evidence of a reduced MMN amplitude only in the HFA group. Furthermore, no differences within groups in the P300 component emerged. Therefore, our results start to provide a more informative characterization of the HIP phenotype in comparison to those of HFA and NTD, highlighting the potential role of the MMN amplitude index in helping clinicians and researchers to distinguish between HIP and HFA. Nevertheless, further research on the topic is strongly needed.
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spelling pubmed-86994912021-12-24 High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample Riccioni, Assia Pro, Stefano Di Criscio, Lorena Terribili, Monica Siracusano, Martina Moavero, Romina Valeriani, Massimiliano Mazzone, Luigi Brain Sci Article High Intellectual Potential (HIP) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are two different conditions sharing some clinical and neurobiological features. The aim of the present study was to characterize a sample of HIP children (n: 16; M/F: 14/2; median age: 10 years) in comparison to those with HFA (n: 17; M/F: 16/1; median age: 13 years) and to neurotypically developed (NTD) children (n: 10; M/F: 4/6; median age: 11 years) from a clinical and neurophysiological perspective. Specifically, a standardized clinical assessment of cognitive and adaptive skills, autistic symptoms, executive functions and behavioral features was performed. Moreover, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded, referring specifically to the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P300 paradigm. Our data highlighted the presence of similarities between the intellectually gifted individuals and the ones with autism (i.e., a nonhomogeneous intellective profile, an adaptive skills impairment, subthreshold autistic symptoms and increased perfectionism). Interestingly, a distinct neurophysiological characterization between groups came out, with evidence of a reduced MMN amplitude only in the HFA group. Furthermore, no differences within groups in the P300 component emerged. Therefore, our results start to provide a more informative characterization of the HIP phenotype in comparison to those of HFA and NTD, highlighting the potential role of the MMN amplitude index in helping clinicians and researchers to distinguish between HIP and HFA. Nevertheless, further research on the topic is strongly needed. MDPI 2021-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8699491/ /pubmed/34942909 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11121607 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Riccioni, Assia
Pro, Stefano
Di Criscio, Lorena
Terribili, Monica
Siracusano, Martina
Moavero, Romina
Valeriani, Massimiliano
Mazzone, Luigi
High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample
title High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample
title_full High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample
title_fullStr High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample
title_full_unstemmed High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample
title_short High Intellectual Potential and High Functioning Autism: Clinical and Neurophysiological Features in a Pediatric Sample
title_sort high intellectual potential and high functioning autism: clinical and neurophysiological features in a pediatric sample
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8699491/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34942909
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11121607
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