Does disregard of transient changes in the environment differentiate behaviour of children with autism from typically developing children and those with down syndrome and idiopathic intellectual disability?

In the research literature, Intellectual Disability (ID) is conceptualised as a set of unique cognitive deficits associated with particular genetic causes rather than simply low IQ. We add to this literature by exploring social/communication features that differentiate ID of three different etiologies: Low Functioning (LF) Autism, Down Syndrome (DS) and Idiopathic ID. A body of research suggests that slow shifting and/or disengaging visual attention in Autism is likely to be a major contributing factor to their impaired social and cognitive development. We propose that slow visual orienting ability in Autism is due to impairment in magnocellular processing of the visual system. Thus, we suggest that individuals with Autism are delayed in shifting and/or disengaging attention as evidenced by a disregard for transient stimuli in their environment, where as individuals with DS and Idiopathic ID show the opposite pattern, in that they appear to be unable to maintain attention to a task, being easily distracted by transient stimuli in their environment. The implications of this visual orienting deficit are discussed in terms of conceptualisation of Autism, visual orienting research in Autism and evidence based educational practice for children with Autism, DS and Idiopathic ID