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Electronic Letters to:
- BehavioralSystemsCognitive:
Rachel M. Brown and Edwin M. Robertson- Off-Line Processing: Reciprocal Interactions between Declarative and Procedural Memories
J. Neurosci. 2007; 27: 10468-10475[Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]
eLetters: Submit a response to this article
Electronic letters published:
learning consolidation, sleep problems, autism
- Fei CHEN (4 November 2007)
learning consolidation, sleep problems, autism 4 November 2007 
Fei CHEN,
PhD student
Regional Autism Centre of Brittany, Bohars Hospital, Bohars 29200 FranceSend letter to journal:
Re: learning consolidation, sleep problems, autism
pierre.fei.chen{at}gmail.com Fei CHEN
With great interest, I read this article that shows the interaction between distinct memory systems. Such a result may give important insights to professionals working with autistic children.
Firstly, what happens in autistic children when two distinct learning procedures are encountered? Autism has been considered as a disorder of information processing with decreased functional connectivity between different brain regions. Could their memory systems develop in a relatively separate way with less interference or less benefit from each other ? Many children with autism seem to have difficulties in declarative memory. Could it be a result of a dependence on one processing style with less (or no) interactive mediation from the other? Moreover, the development of declarative memory is tightly related to verbal ability that is also impaired in autistic children.
Secondly, maybe we should pay more attention to the temporal organization of activites offered to every patient (in which both procedural and the declarative learning may be involved). The temporal organization should be appropriate to the receptivity and to the biological rhythm of each autistic child. "The interval of interference" between two different activities may vary among individuals.
Thirdly and "unfortunately", the off-line consolidation may also be impaired in many autistic children with long-term sleep problems: sleep fragmentation, etc. The treatment of sleep problems may be very helpful to their cognitive development (including the memory systems) and to the improvement in cognitive remediation.
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