Cognitive profiles in children with autism spectrum disorder after receiving six months of rehabilitation

Abstract EN

Background: cognitive profiles vary in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to date remain a controversial topic.

as cognitive abilities contribute to the severity of the spectrum, it is crucial to attempt to comprehend the impact of these abilities on the overall prognosis of ASD.

therefore, it will be targeted by the implementation of a rehabilitative program (CCPSN) and then assessing the cognitive abilities and ASD severity level after receiving 6 months of intervention.

aim : the study is aiming to determine the improvement of cognitive profiles using Stanford Binet 5 (SB5) on children with ASD after receiving intervention / rehabilitation for 6 months.

patients & methods : an intervention prospective study was carried out on a sample of 25 randomly selected ASD Egyptian children, ranging from the ages of (3-7) years old, who were seeking support at a special needs Center during the period from January 2021 to January 2022.

children were subjected to a semi-structured clinical psychiatric interview twice (including the DSM 5- TR and the ADOS- 2), Stanford Binet 5 first, then they followed an intervention plan based on the CCPSN for 6 months and reassessed.

results : there is a significant statistical difference between pre and post IQ scores with respect to all 25 children (p = 0.002) following the cognition-enhancing rehabilitative program.

regarding the ADOS- 2 the difference was also significant for all children (p = < 0.001) especially males (p = < 0.001) versus females (p = 0.001).

conclusion : the implementation of an intervention program to improve cognitive abilities in children with ASD is considered an effective therapeutic method for enhancing cognitive aptitude.

such a significant outcome was more evident in males than in females.