| Visualspatial ability is the capacity to perceive the visual world accurately (like environment, object characteristics, contexts, location), and the ability to mentally manipulate pictorial information.It has predictive validity for future achievement in mathematics, science, technology, and so on. Children with autism spectrum disorders have been reported to show relative strengths on visuospatial ability.They identify and code information based on shape, color, size, spatial orientation. Due to these superior visuospatial abilities, many techniques and strategies are being exploited to intervention. We designed a series of cognitive experiments to identify if visuospatial abilities in children with ASD are outstanding, and to find out the features shown in theses tasks. Then we can use this information to determine the appropriate material and devise scientific communication system that can be used in the groups’ therapy.This tow-part study adopts four experiments to all three major areas of visuospatial ability (spatial perception, mental rotation, and spatial visualization) and jigsaw puzzles.30 children with autism spectrum disorders and 30 MA-and-PPVT matched typical children are involved in our study. Findings show that (1) children with ASD performed better and faster than did the control group on spatial perception and spatial visualization tasks, which verified their stronger visual advantage in detection, matching, and reconstitution; (2) ASD were as accurate as typical children in the task of mental rotation, but the general pattern that reaction time increasing by rotation Angle didn’t find in two groups;(3) Individuals with autism disorders performed better on shape in jigsaw puzzles, they tended to have shaped-based strategies and not influenced by the boundary clues;(4) mostly ASD’s performance in visuospatial did not differ from typical children, whereas they deed show some specificity in the cognitive function. |
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