Brief Report: Differences in Multisensory Integration Covary with Sensory Responsiveness in Children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Jacob I Feldman, Wayne Kuang, Julie G Conrad and 8 others
PMID 30043353WHAT IT FOUND
Children with autism and typical peers who were less accurate at matching heard and seen speech also showed more unusual sensory behavior, like seeming not to notice or seeking extra input; no causal link was shown.
Key findings
01Children with autism were less accurate at lip-reading and matching sound with lip movements, and combined sound and sight over wider time windows.
02Children who were less accurate at hearing, lip-reading, and matched sound-and-sight speech tasks also tended to seem not to notice sensory input.
03The links between speech perception scores and sensory patterns did not differ between autism and typical groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was small: 18 children with autism and 18 typical controls. The autism group was mostly older and higher-functioning enough to complete the task, so results may not apply to younger, lower-functioning, or broader autism populations. Missing data ranged from 0 to 27.8% across variables, although participants with missing data did not differ from those without missing data in diagnosis, age, or verbal IQ. Analyses were exploratory and not corrected for multiple comparisons. The study cannot show that sensory patterns cause speech perception differences or the reverse. Between-group multisensory differences were previously reported for this sample, so this paper mainly adds associations with sensory scores.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that sensory patterns cause speech perception problems or that treating them will improve speech. The study only reports associations, and the authors state that directionality and causality cannot be inferred.