sfunction in childhood autism, especially in the cortical areas devoted to language and handedness, leading to anomalous hemispheric specialization.
Both the medial temporal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex have been implicated in autism (2:1). In a study by Dawson, Meltzoff, Osterling and Rinaldi (2:1276-85), performance on two neurophysiological tasks - one tapping the medial temporal lobe and related limbic structures, and another tapping the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - was examined in relation to performance on tasks assessing autistic symptoms in young children with autism, and developmentally matched groups of children with Down's syndrome or typical development. Autistic symptoms included orienting to social stimuli, immediate and deferred motor imitation, shared attention, responses to emotional stimuli, and symbolic play.
Compared with Down's syndrome and typically developing children, children with autism performed significantly worse on both the medial temporal lobe and dorsolateral prefrontal tasks, and on task assessing symptoms domains.
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