Difficulty shifting attention

• between sensory modalities

  
  (Courchesne 1994)

• between spatial locations

  
  (Wainright-Sharp & Bryson 1993, 1996; Townsend et al. 1996, 1999;
  Harris et al. 1999; Belmonte 2000)

• between object features

  (Courchesne et al. 1994; Rinehart et al. 2001)

Similar findings hold not only for shifts between spatial locations, but also for shifts between sensory modalities, and even for shifts between object features within a single modality.

Exploring the neurophysiology associated with this relatively straightforward behavioural deficit may help illuminate its relation to other features of the autistic syndrome.

`Functional Anatomy of Compensatory Processing in Autistic Attention: Complementary Roles of Selection and Suppression', Matthew Belmonte, 1 November 2002