Autistic Children With Speech Onset Delay Show Reversed Bias in Spectral Versus Temporal Auditory Processing.

Small sample: 21 autistic and 23 typically developing children, from one study, so the results are preliminary. The two groups were not comparable at the start. The autistic children had much lower nonverbal IQ and language scores, so the hearing differences could reflect those differences rather than autism itself. The authors themselves say the profile could be a consequence of early language delay rather than a cause. The findings apply only to autistic children with early language delay and typical autism. Children without language delay, children with Asperger-like profiles, older people, and those diagnosed later were excluded, so this does not describe the whole autism spectrum. The pitch task only measured low frequencies, and the timing task only measured gap detection. Other kinds of timing and higher-frequency hearing were not tested. The links between hearing and language are associations from a single time point, not evidence that one causes the other.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The work was funded by Guangzhou University and by an Opening Project of the Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education. No company that sells a treatment or device was involved.

Do not read the sharper pitch detection as a general autistic strength or as proof that autism caused these processing differences. The two groups differed sharply in nonverbal IQ and language before testing, and the authors themselves say the profile could be a consequence of early language delay rather than its cause. Forty-four children in one study cannot settle that.