Auditory evoked potentials in adolescents with autism: An investigation of brain development, intellectual impairment, and neural encoding.

The study did not include a comparison group with intellectual impairment or language disorder without autism, so it cannot show that the auditory brain response differences are specific to autism. The design was cross-sectional, so it cannot directly show whether the differences are developmental delays that persist or change over time. Many minimally or low verbal autistic participants could not complete the test or were excluded for too few usable trials, so the retained sample may not represent autistic adolescents with the highest support needs. Different nonverbal intelligence tests were used for different groups, and verbal intelligence was estimated with different measures, which may affect comparisons. Black and African American participants were underrepresented, and EEG cap issues with coarse or curly hair may affect generalizability. Artifact rejection used a limited set of channels and did not include hand editing or independent component analysis, so some noise may remain. The authors did not analyze latency, so timing differences were not tested.

The supplied text lists NIH and non-U.S. government research support. It does not state a commercial sponsor, author conflict of interest, or that a company that sells the treatment funded or wrote the study.

Do not read this as evidence that autism causes atypical sound sensitivity or that auditory evoked potentials can be used in clinic now. The study had no comparison group with intellectual impairment or language disorder without autism, and the authors say further research is needed before clinical use.