Autism as an executive disorder:

Autism continues to fascinate researchers because it is both debilitating in its effects and complex in its nature and origins. This text argues that autism is primarily a disorder of "executive functions", those involved 328 The neurobiology of autism; integrating the neurobiological and neurophysical dimensions of autism; impairments in generating behaviour; towards an executive dysfunction account of repetitive behaviour in autism; pretend play in autism - executive explanations; the nature and the uniqueness of the executive deficits in autism; validity tests of the executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism; components of executive function in autism and other disorders; agency, self-awareness, and autism; motor-images, self-consciousness, and autism; how executive disorders can bring about an inadequate "theory of mind".