Differential Maturation of Auditory Cortex Activity in Young Children with Autism and Typical Development.
Heather L Green, Guannan Shen, Rose E Franzen and 17 others
PMID 35960416WHAT IT FOUND
An early auditory brain response did not differ between children with autism and typically developing children aged 6 to 9.
Other auditory cortex activity differences faded by later follow-up, while one difference before the tone remained.
Key findings
01The early auditory evoked response (M50) latency did not differ between groups, although it became ~ 10 ms earlier by Time 3 and was ~ 4 ms earlier in the right than left hemisphere.
02Trial-to-trial consistency of auditory cortex activity was higher in autism than typical development at Time 1 and Time 2, but not Time 3.
03Across the three visits, right-hemisphere activity before the tone was higher in autism than typical development.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only children with IQ or language scores at least 70 were included, so findings may not apply to children with lower cognitive or language scores. The M100 response was not observed in most children, so group differences in M100 latency could not be tested. The right M100 difference at the first visit was an exploratory presence/absence analysis. Samples became smaller at later visits, mainly because of COVID-19, new diagnoses, braces, or families withdrawing. The study measured brain responses, not hearing, speech, language, or therapy outcomes.
Declared interests
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation. The paper does not report conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the brain differences as a reason to change therapy or as a diagnostic test. The study did not test a therapy or a functional communication outcome, and some differences were exploratory or age-dependent.