Traits related to autism-spectrum disorder (ASD) are linked with problems in visual processing in adults who were born preterm, as shown by Elina Wolford and colleagues in a recent study published in The Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and interaction, and has often been associated with an enhanced ability to find and focus on details and problems in global visual processing, i.e. integrating parts to form a whole. This is often described as not being able to “see the forest for the trees”. ASD is considered as a continuum ranging from mild traits in the general public to the more severe form of the disorder, and the atypical visual processing style has also been reported in individuals with a higher level of ASD-traits. Those adults who were born preterm, i.e. before 37 weeks of gestation, have previously been reported to have more ASD-type problems in social interaction and more problems in visual processing, compared with term-born peers, but the association of these two types of problems has never before been studied in adults born preterm.
The Helsinki Study of Very Low Birth Weight Adults (HeSVA) is a follow-up study of originally 335 individuals who were born preterm at very low birth weight (VLBW; birth weight <1500g) in Helsinki between 1978-1985. The DEPSY group with our collaborators has published multiple studies on the long term effects on adult health, neurocognitive abilities, and personality of individuals born preterm based on the longitudinal data from the HeSVA study.
In this study by Wolford and colleagues, we examined the association of ASD-traits and visual processing skills at the average age of 25 years in 113 adults born preterm at VLBW and 105 controls born at term. We used self-rated questionnaires of ASD-traits and a complex design copying task to assess global visual processing skills. We found that a higher level of self-rated ASD-traits was associated with slower performance in the global visual processing task among those born preterm at VLBW, but not among the term-born group.
Our findings suggest that the associations between ASD-traits and visual processing may be restricted to individuals born preterm, and related specifically to problems in global visual processing, not an enhanced ability to focus on details. In addition, our findings point to cumulative social and neurocognitive problems in those born preterm at VLBW which persist into adulthood. This study emphasizes the need to follow-up individuals born preterm and focus on finding ways to attenuate these cumulative problems.
/ Elina Wolford