ONE THING AT A TIME: Children with autism might tend to focus on one stimulus because their brains are slightly slower to integrate inputs coming from more than one sense at a time.
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Children with autism often focus intently on a single activity or feature of their environment. New research might help to explain this behavioral trend, providing evidence that the brains of young people with autism are slower to integrate input coming from more than one sense at the same time.
During study of the disorder decades ago, research into these basic tendencies was common. But in subsequent years, scientists have tended to focus more on complex issues, ranging from communication troubles to underlying genetic patterns.
Recently, however, more studies have set their sights back on some of the simple processes that most people take for granted, such as sensory intake, as a way to better understand more high-level manifestations, such as social interaction issues. "We believe that these things interact in very significant ways," says Sophie Molholm, an associate professor of neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and co-author of a new study about multi-sensory processing.
The research, published online August 19 in Autism Research, used electroencephalograms (EEGs) to measure electrical activity in the brain through the scalp of subjects as they encountered various stimuli. Seventeen children (ages six to 16 years) with autism—and 17 age- and IQ-matched normally developing kids—watched a silent video of their choice throughout the testing. Meanwhile, tones and vibrations were administered in random order, sometimes separately, sometimes at the same time. The EEG readings were time-stamped to the stimuli and compared across all of the children to assess brain activity trends during single- and multi-sensory stimulation. Although the video presented visual stimuli, Molholm points out that because it was a consistent exposure throughout the experiments and the EEG readings were set to pick up on the sound and somatosensory stimuli and averaged out over so many tests, it becomes akin to "background brain activity that will sum to zero," she notes. "It's really just something to keep them busy."
A simple stimulus takes about 20 milliseconds to arrive in the brain. When information from multiple senses registers at the same time, integration takes about 100 to 200 milliseconds in normally developing children. But those with autism took an average of 310 milliseconds to integrate the noise and vibration when they occurred together.
This difference, "at one level, is a very minor time delay," Molholm says. "But if you're thinking about human cognition…that could really interfere with normal processing," making what she describes as a "pretty significant impact." The research team also found that shortly after a stimulus was presented, brain activity in which timing seemed similar in typically developing children and in those with autism, the children with autism had lower overall signal strength, signified by lower amplitude waves on the EEG.
Although the study cannot definitively explain any direct behavioral correlates, it might hint at some of the underlying reasons for many of the disorder's hallmarks, such as sensitivity to excessive sensory stimulation.
"Maybe part of the reason these children might want to block out this—what seems to them extraneous stimulation—[is that] it fails to gain meaning for them as it does for other people," Molholm notes. She and her colleagues made clear in their study that these children were still eventually able to integrate the inputs from multiple senses and that there is a chance that as they become older, the children's integration speed could increase. The researchers proposed that one reason for this consistent delay is that children with autism might need to direct their attention to stimuli to achieve integration, whereas most others are capable of doing it implicitly.
Although the EEG is able to detect brain activity location and timing on a relatively minute scale, it does not paint a complete picture of the physiology behind these observed delays. "This is just a small step to understand multi-sensory integration," Molholm says. "Part of what we'd like to do next is look at brain anatomy and possibly how connectivity between different functional regions differs in autism."
Pinning down more data about how children with autism respond to multi-sensory stimuli should also help researchers, therapists and parents to evaluate sensory-integration therapy, which has been a popular treatment for individuals with autism. At present, "there's no objective measure to know if your sensory-integration therapy has worked," Molholm notes.
Empirical EEG maps might also eventually become a component of a more precise diagnostic toolbox, Molholm says. "We'd certainly like that to be the case," she says. And the EEG-stimulus test has the advantage of being "a passive paradigm," in which children do not have to execute tasks or take many directions, thus allowing most all developmental levels and a wide range of ages to undergo parallel analysis.
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19 Comments
Add CommentI have two sons on the spectrum and a daughter with ADHD. Of the two boys, the older has mild/moderate autism while his brother has PDD-NOS. The older boy requires more and frequent stimuli to react to some things and tends to focus on one stimulus over others. At the same time, other things such as airplanes or helicopters bother his hearing and he will cover his ears to block the sound. Even his sister tends to require more and increased stimuli for information to make an impact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe study certainly makes sense from personal experience. It will be interesting to see what further studies reveal.
So this experiment included 17 affected and unaffected representative age and IQ matched pairs of subjects, those affected representing what point on the now diverse spectrum of autistic disorders?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis shotgun sampling method cannot offer a valid statistical representation of any age, IQ or ASD group. Were the researchers hoping to characterize all ASD related subjects with this population sampling?
"When information from multiple senses registers at the same time, integration takes about 100 to 200 milliseconds in normally developing children. But those with autism took an average of 310 milliseconds to integrate the noise and vibration when they occurred together."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's possible longer integration may also mean the meaning weighting of each seperate input is higher and/or integration is creating a higher meaning, or higher insight experience, baseline, for those with autism. See? Ok. I'll tone it down.
Not good or bad to take longer to integrate (or less for those that take less) but the population variability is what makes the essence and value of sociality, but the farther one is from the baseline the more probable one will experience a greater dysfunctionality at various levels on the bio-psycho-socio spectrum (of course distance from baseline functionality can be greatly exacerbated by labeling, stigma, grouping, exclusion --and all these factors are usually compounded over time through developmental chaneling and reinforcement).
So variability has a large sweet point, and it's maybe larger than we imagine.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is hardly unusual for extremely poorly thought out and poorly executed "studies" to be touted as definitive when it comes to the "therapy industry".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo often the "researchers" are true believers on some sort of speculation they have dreamed up and invent a wholly specious bit of "research" to demonstrate their point of view.
They have created an entire world parallel to that of "real science" wherein they disregard the tenets of scientific inquiry but misrepresent themselves to the public as some sort of "scientists"
We see an industry that is as adrift from "real science" as is "creationism" and as was the "spiritualism" of the early 20th century.
I didn't see a single thing that said: "This is why autistic children are this way, this is a fact, get over it." Clearly you either misread the article or you failed to read it and decided to tout your misguided beliefs on the rest of the article readers. The point of this article was to present a theory "dreamed-up" by scientists and psychologists to an audience and show some minor supporting evidence that demonstrates that it could be *possible* for this theory to be true. All laws, facts and accepted paradigms have started as theories and they were proven to be what they are based on our understanding of the events they characterize. Yes, there are charlatans and dishonest people trying to make money off the misinformed, but this is a science article on a science website for the science community. They have nothing to gain or exploit here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is nonsense to suggest that "they have nothing to gain or exploit"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe see plainly invalid "research" published by people looking to gain "fame and fortune" by being "widely published researchers".
Let us not forget that "social standing" is as important a reward as money, once basic needs are met so far as food and shelter are concerned.
Additionally.. we can be certain the authors of this "research" were paid for performing it.. via grants or by continuing employment in a "publish or perish" collegiate environment.
The "diagnoses" of the vast majority of the various "disorders" enumerated by the therapy industry are, by themselves, extremely doubtful as they are rife with subjectivity and sadly ridiculous little checklists worthy only of the entertainment columns in popular mass market magazines.
This kind of "research" is done by "researchers" who are exposed to obvious social status and financial incentives.
It is the vaguest of speculations buttressed by nothing that could even remotely considered scientific evidence.
To a sensible person.. who actually understand real world employee psychology... this looks like some "researchers" who got a grant.... squandered the funds ..... and then dawdled until the last minute and whipped up a paper of doubtful utility to explain where the money and time went.
My son is on the spectrum, but is very high-functioning - mild Aspergers. Still when we ask him to do anything, it is important for him to be focussed on what we are saying, and for us to break the task down for him, otherwise external influences definitely distract him very easily. The results of this study are not surprising to me at all: I have often seen him struggle to "put all the pieces together". It really helps for him to discuss things with me, and this, in turn, helps him to connect the dots.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate to say it (urrghh!), but playing video games has truly helped him to increase his ability to integrate different types of sensory data and his overall hand/eye coordination.
An interesting study: anything that can assist in developing the skills of these children and make others aware of what we parents already see first-hand is welcome news to me.
A Swedish psychiatrist, Dr. Harald Blomberg MD, has had good results in helping kids with autism recover. Twenty-five years ago he developed a movement-based therapy called Rhythmic Movement Training. Using the same developmental movements that infants make during their first year of life, clients are able build new neural pathways and integrate primitive reflexes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy improving coordination of the cerebellum, the children are better able to process stimulation. By integrating the Moro reflex, they no longer hypersensitive to stimuli.
The improvement can be explained by the fact that the rhythmic movement training stimulates the growth of the nerve cells in different parts of the brain which are damaged or malfunctioning in autism, e.g. the brain stem, the cerebellum, the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. Moreover the training develops the nerve nets between these structures and helps the brain to function in a more unified way. Since this is a slow process the training has to be continued for a long time, preferably for a year or more.
You can read more about RMT at www.BrainFitnessStrategies.com
e_caroline - Well put. There seems to be a great disparity in what is regarded as proper methodology among the various scientific disciplines. IMO many would not qualify for publication in scientific journals representing other fields of study. The scientific method seems to be highly adaptable...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that overcoming primitive reflexes when applicable is a good start. Integrating repetitive exercise, therapy and proprioceptive input with dietary and behavioral strategies will give a more whole person approach to a communication issues between the left and right sides of the brain. I like what Brain Balance - www.brainbalancecenters.com - has to say about Functional Disconnection Syndrome and how to improve it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a very interesting article.It is also very important, mostly because these children have been considered as mentaly delayed. I have been using for the last 24 years, electroacupuncture (without nedles) treatments for children with diferent type of discapacities, logicaly including autism.Precisely my main criteria has been a disorder of processing the outside stimuly.Logically,the treatment includes ocupational therapy. I am still searching to improve my treatments, because under autism, there is a very graet variation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find this article very inbteresting, but also very important.Many researchers ave considered autistic children has mentaly delayed. The dificulty in processing he outside information is important, because each one has is own limit to process simultaneously diferent kind of timulation.This is increased in autistic children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a very interesting article,because the managment f autism is considered very different if those children are delayed but diferent if the pathology is to have dificulties to process several outside stimulations.I have been considering this consideraton during my treatments with electroacpuncture(without needles) during the las 24 years of practice
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis may come across as odd, but I am talking about autism from the mentality of one who actually has it, so I hope this makes sense. This article makes a lot of sense. When there are a large number of different sensory things going on at once (someone talking to me, food cooking, background noises, an uncomfortable chair, a too hot room,etc)it starts to feel like I am mentally wading through Jell0. The terms that comes to mind if I could do it would be literally to ask things to sensorilly (I'm not sure if that is even a word, but I'll use it anyway) wait their turn. If there would be a way to help the mind become accustomed to sensory multi-tasking (if you notice, it is also hard for people with autism to multi-task sometimes. I personally feel like these are related.), then the machine would act more well oiled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, this difficulty with more than one sense at once makes overstimulation almost automatic. Have you ever seen the way a wreck looks when there are multiple cars involved? The way one rear ends the one in front of it that has stopped too soon because it can't go anywhere, then the next one rear ends the next, and so on? That's overstimulation. That's why there are tears, and tantrums. There is an internal knowledge that the brain isn't doing something right, and a lack of internal understanding at that exact second, as to why, even though the knowledge is there the rest of the time. Added to that is the sense of frustration that comes from that (If someone senses all kinds of things, it's hard not to use those same senses, even if you can't understand why, to see that no one else is acting like you are).
The mind of someone one the autistic spectrum (I am not writing them in caps for a specific reason, and it is not out of disrespect to the study of it.) is much like a computer. I'm sure it's been said a million times. Within the autistic community, Data and Spock from Star Trek have been taken as sort of mascots for lack of a better word. We know how we think. Try to feed 3 programs into a computer at once.
Just my two cents and I hope it is useful to someone.
This may come across as odd, but I am talking about autism from the mentality of one who actually has it, so I hope this makes sense. This article makes a lot of sense. When there are a large number of different sensory things going on at once (someone talking to me, food cooking, background noises, an uncomfortable chair, a too hot room,etc)it starts to feel like I am mentally wading through Jell0. The terms that comes to mind if I could do it would be literally to ask things to sensorilly (I'm not sure if that is even a word, but I'll use it anyway) wait their turn. If there would be a way to help the mind become accustomed to sensory multi-tasking (if you notice, it is also hard for people with autism to multi-task sometimes. I personally feel like these are related.), then the machine would act more well oiled.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, this difficulty with more than one sense at once makes overstimulation almost automatic. Have you ever seen the way a wreck looks when there are multiple cars involved? The way one rear ends the one in front of it that has stopped too soon because it can't go anywhere, then the next one rear ends the next, and so on? That's overstimulation. That's why there are tears, and tantrums. There is an internal knowledge that the brain isn't doing something right, and a lack of internal understanding at that exact second, as to why, even though the knowledge is there the rest of the time. Added to that is the sense of frustration that comes from that (If someone senses all kinds of things, it's hard not to use those same senses, even if you can't understand why, to see that no one else is acting like you are).
The mind of someone one the autistic spectrum (I am not writing them in caps for a specific reason, and it is not out of disrespect to the study of it.) is much like a computer. I'm sure it's been said a million times. Within the autistic community, Data and Spock from Star Trek have been taken as sort of mascots for lack of a better word. We know how we think. Try to feed 3 programs into a computer at once.
Just my two cents and I hope it is useful to someone.
The article hits a number of issues squarely on the head. 1.) The need of an autisticly prone mind to focus on recurrent prime number-like stimuli may help distribute the probability of capturing a balanced perception spectrum of otherwise missed cues during events of suspected sensory overload conditions. 2.) The ability of women to multitaslk more effectively correlates with a smaller number of women diagnosed with autism. 3.) What other influence than sensory/information overload better explains the increasing proportion of children diagnosed with autism in the past decade? 4) Adults who may have formerly been classically autistic may now have hardenned themselves against overload in ways giving them unprecedented clarity of vision under complex conflict situations when repetition may not even be required to concentrate. Provocative indeed, considering that sensory overload happens also to victims of shell shock who may have long since parented unique specimens who will be rarely forthcoming with free intelligence in the open media.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if you were to take random voices, or snippets of conversation that became the background and then present multiple forms of visual simuli (which for some people on the spectrum would be most stimulating using written language).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould stimuli integration of "normal" children still be faster.
That processing speed of visual stimuli and other stimuli may be different in spectrum kids is certainly a possible explanation - is it not?
If these kids are truly the same IQ, I wonder how they got there. How did the autistic children who can not "Integrate Input from Multiple Senses" fast enough, which for "human cognition…that could really interfere with normal processing", reach they same IQ?
I reject this research on the grounds that measuring senses which autistics use less and concluding autistics can not function cognitively because they are slower in integrating multiple non-visual senses (which they likely make less use of anyway) does not at all address the issue of whether and to what degree the autistics can compensate via visual skills to function cognitively.
If "normal" children do not have the same speed of visual recognition (or multiple forms of visual recognition) as autistics do, are we going to conclude that is why those "normal" children can't function cognitively. Remember they are the same IQ.
It's a mistake to confuse behavior with cognition. That autistics react differently to stimulus does not mean they have less cognitive functioning. Please test reactions to stimulus more thoroughly before you paint a picture of autistics who are the same IQ as their peers as having less ability to function cognitively.
Being weak at sound and vibration may not mean less ability to function cognitively.
You make some very interesting claims. In your opinion, what do you think the researchers were funded to study? What experiments should they have run, and what results would have been acceptable for publication?
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