Neural and behavioral suppression of interfering flankers by children with and without autism spectrum disorder

- Children are faster and more accurate, with less negative N2 for congruent flankers.
- Children with ASD are less accurate and slower, particularly for incongruent trials.
- Children with ASD have inefficient N2 neural responses to conflict monitoring.
- N2 neural responses correspond to inhibition and monitoring behavior.
- Symptoms of ADHD relate to response inhibition and ASD to interference suppression.

Electrophysiological responses, accuracy and reaction time were recorded while 7-11-year-olds with typical development (TYP; N=30) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD; N=19) inhibited conflicting information. Relative to the TYP group, children with ASD had larger decrements in accuracy for incongruent trials and were slower. In terms of neural responses, N2 mean amplitude was greater overall for children with ASD relative to TYP children. N2 neural responses related to a behavioral measure of inhibition and cognitive flexibility for TYP children, whereas it related to suppression of interfering information and maintenance of accurate responding for the children with ASD. Results suggest children with ASD recruit more neural resources and perform worse when inhibiting conflicting information relative to TYP peers.