ArticleAutism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research2022
Parallel age-related cognitive effects in autism: A cross-sectional replication study.
Article in Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cognitive and Cerebral Aging Research in Autism: A Systematic Review on an Emerging Topic.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025Pooled it
- A meta-analysis on the relationship between subjective cognitive failures as measured by the cognitive failures questionnaire (CFQ) and objective performance on executive function tasks.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Pooled it
- Cognitive and brain morphological deviations in middle-to-old aged autistic adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Examining whether adults with autism spectrum disorder encounter multiple problems in theory of mind: a study based on meta-analysis.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2023Pooled it
- Cognitive Aging Patterns in Autism: Parallel, Accelerated, or Safeguarded?Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Examining the Lived Experiences of Older Autistic Adults: A Synthesis Review of Qualitative Literature.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Tools for Detecting Ageing in People with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Advancing care priorities for health and quality of life among older adults in the autism and/or intellectual disabilities communities: proceedings of an international Think Tank.BMC proceedings · 2025Article
- Self-reported Prospective and Retrospective Memory Among Middle Aged and Older Autistic and Non-autistic People.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- The Association Between Autism Spectrum Traits and Age-Related Spatial Working Memory Decline: A Large-Scale Longitudinal Study.The Gerontologist · 2025Article
- Autism Spectrum Disorder in adults: an integrative review about strategies for promotion and maintenance of quality of life.Sao Paulo medical journal = Revista paulista de medicina · 2025Review
- Remembering the future; prospective memory across the autistic adult's life span.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2024Article
- Psychiatric Disease as a Potential Risk Factor for Dementia: A Narrative Review.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Aging Well and Autism: A Narrative Review and Recommendations for Future Research.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Increased anticholinergic medication use in middle-aged and older autistic adults and its associations with self-reported memory difficulties and cognitive decline.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2024Article
- Self-reported memory of autistic young adults and associated real-world outcomes.Research in autism spectrum disorders · 2023Article
- Neural reinstatement of context memory in adults with autism spectrum disorder.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- The cognitive profile of middle-aged and older adults with high vs. low autistic traits.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2023Article
- Parallel age-related cognitive effects in autism: A cross-sectional replication study.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2022Article
- Preliminary findings of accelerated visual memory decline and baseline brain correlates in middle-age and older adults with autism: The case for hippocampal free-water.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Findings on age-related cognitive effects in autism in adulthood are inconsistent across studies. As these studies substantially differ in their methodology, replication studies are needed. In this replication study frequentist (i.e., null-hypothesis significance testing), and Bayesian statistics were used to investigate the hypothesis that in autistic adults compared to non-autistic adults mostly parallel, but also protective age-related cognitive effects can be observed. Participants were 88 autistic adults, and 88 non-autistic matched comparisons (age range: 30-89 years, mean age: 55 years). Cognitive measures were administered on the following six domains: verbal memory, visual memory, working memory, Theory of Mind (ToM), verbal fluency, and processing speed, and self-reported cognitive failures. Non-autistic adults outperformed autistic adults on ToM, verbal fluency, and verbal memory, but only the first two were confirmed with Bayesian replication analyses. Also, more cognitive failures were reported by autistic adults. No interactions between group and age were observed, suggesting a parallel age-related effect on all cognitive domains. In sum, previously observed difficulties in ToM and verbal fluency were replicated which seem to persist at older age. Previously reported parallel age-related cognitive patterns were replicated, yet no evidence for protective age-related patterns was found. LAY SUMMARY: We investigated whether our previous findings on cognitive aging in autism could be confirmed in a new study measuring the cognitive effects of age in autistic and non-autistic adults. As expected, tasks that younger autistic adults had difficulties with (theory of mind, fluency) were also difficult for older autistic adults, and the effect of age itself was similar in autistic and non-autistic adults. Unexpectedly, we observed no protective effects (less cognitive aging) in autism.
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