A Randomized Controlled Trial for Audiovisual Multisensory Perception in Autistic Youth.

The sample was small, with 30 participants, so it may have been too small to detect average effects. The primary outcome was null, and the small trend favored training mainly because the control group's temporal binding windows widened. Moderator findings were subgroup analyses in a small trial, so they are not proof that the training works for higher IQ or language groups. Nonverbal IQ and language scores were highly correlated, so the study cannot separate which ability drove the effects. Language and cognitive testing was done 0 to 30 months before the trial and scores from different tests were combined. Long pre-test and post-test sessions may have caused fatigue or exposure effects. Six participants had missing data points, and one did not complete post-testing. The training did not improve the McGurk illusion task, so broader speech perception generalization was not shown. Participants and parents did not rate the training as clearly helpful or meaningful.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the National Science Foundation, and the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation. The supplied text does not report other conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that this training improves audiovisual speech perception for autistic youth in general. The average trained temporal binding window did not differ from the camp-only control, and the positive subgroup results came from a small trial in which lower nonverbal IQ participants showed widening.