Review: Attention and Memory in Autism

Many investigations have documented about attentional and memorial abnormality in individuals with autism. This study is summary of recent researches about alternations of attention and memory in autism. The most important changes of attention in autism are: 1) Arousal modulatory system dysfunction, leading to fluctuations between states over and under arousal. 2) Reduction of orienting and processing of novel stimuli. 3) Over focused attention, responding to only a subset of environmental cues. 4) Deficit in shifting attention, leading to difficulty moving their attention from one special location to another. The most important changes of memory in autism are: 1) Good rote memory 2) Cued recall is significantly better than free recall 3) Deficit in working memory 4) Deficit in implicit and explicit memory 5) Deficit in verbal memory about material that requires further encoding, organization or use of meaning or semantic cues for recalling 6) High functioning memory in some of the patients for example ability to read well, singing or recognizing musical pieces.