ORIGINAL PAPER Neuropsychological Profile in High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders Antonio Narzisi • Filippo Muratori • Sara Calderoni • Franco Fabbro • Cosimo Urgesi Published online: 8 December 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract A comprehensive investigation of the neuro- psychological strengths and weaknesses of children with autism may help to better describe their cognitive abilities and to design appropriate interventions. To this end we compared the NEPSY-II profiles of 22 children with high- functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) with those of 44 healthy control (HC) children 2:1 matched by gender, age, race and education. Results showed that only Visuospatial Processing was relatively spared in HFASD, while deficits were observed in Attention and Executive Functions, Language, Learning and Memory, and Senso- rimotor Processing. Theory of Mind difficulties were observed in verbal tasks but not in the understanding of emotional contexts, suggesting that appropriate contextual cues might help emotion understanding in HFASD chil- dren. These widespread neuropsychological impairments reflect alterations in multiple cognitive domains in HFASD. Keywords Autism spectrum disorders Á NEPSY Á Neuropsychology Á Theory of Mind Introduction Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit core impairments in the socio-communication domain and have restricted or stereotyped patterns of behaviors. How- ever ASD vary greatly in the severity of their socio- communicative impairments (Lord 2011) and in cognitive and language development. ASD with normal or high IQ are referred to as high functioning autism (HFA) or high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD). This latter term is often used to characterize the broader group of children with HFA, Asperger syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) (Volker et al. 2010; Oliveras-Rentas et al. 2012; Scheeren et al. 2012). These individuals demonstrate relative strengths in cognitive and language abilities (Klin et al. 2000), though pragmatic language deficits are observed (Landa 2000). Thus, they share the two core features of ASD: social-communication impairment and circumscribed pattern of behavior and interest, which, together, contribute to their poor overall social competence (Attwood 2004). Several studies have shown that children with HFASD are also impaired in different other cognitive functions (Tsatsanis 2005), including deficits in motor functions (Baranek et al. 2005), high-order language aspects, such as semantics and pragmatics (Minshew et al. 1995; Tager- Flusberg 2004), selected executive functions (Liss et al. A. Narzisi Á F. Muratori Á S. Calderoni Division of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Stella Maris Scientific Institute, University of Pisa, Via dei Giacinti, 2, 56018 Calambrone, Pisa, Italy A. Narzisi (&) Division of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, Stella Maris Scientific Institute, University of Pisa, Viale del Tirreno, 331, 56018 Calambrone, Pisa, Italy e-mail: antonio.narzisi@inpe.unipi.it F. Fabbro Á C. Urgesi (&) Department of Human Sciences, University of Udine and Eugenio Medea Scientific Institute, Via Margreth, 3, 33100 Udine, Italy e-mail: cosimo.urgesi@uniud.it 123 J Autism Dev Disord (2013) 43:1895–1909 DOI 10.1007/s10803-012-1736-0