Title:
WORKING MEMORY IN AUTISM: A REVIEW. EXECUTIVE FUNCTION OR COMPLEXITY THEORY?

Authors:
Giovanni Maria Guazzo

Abstract:
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterised by social impairments, communication difficulties, and by restricted and repetitive activities, and executive function (EF) problems are often seen throughout the spectrum. Working Memory (WM) is a temporary storage system under attentional control that actively holds multiple pieces of transitory information in the mind. WM is a part of the executive functions, which is an umbrella term for cognitive processes that regulate, control, and manage other cognitive processes, for instance planning and attention. This article shows that studies supporting either executive function or complexity theory do not correlate and that attention should be oriented not to performance levels in WM tasks but to the strategies and resources employed in verbal and visuospatial memory during the life cycle.

Keywords:
Working Memory, Autism, Executive Functions, Complexity Theory.

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37500/IJESSR.2024.7206

Date of Publication: 03-04-2024