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The reality for children with autism may resemble watch a moving picture with the sound out of sync . New enquiry show up these kid have trouble put together what they see with what they hear , and that these deficits may underlie their speech and communication problems .
For most people , the signals get in in the brain from the ear and the eyes within a time windowpane of 100 to 200 msec , are put together , to form one perception . For example , pick up the auditory sensation of a word and seeing the movement of lips together create the perception of a spoken Word of God .
Human brain integrates signals simultaneously coming from different senses.
The novel study showed that in tyke with autism , the time window for tie down signals together is wide-eyed , meaning that thebrain integrates eventsthat fall out as much as half a 2d ( 500 milliseconds ) asunder , and should have been perceived as separate events , according to the study . The findings are release today ( Jan. 14 ) in the Journal of Neuroscience .
" Children with autism have bother integrate cooccurring information from their oculus and their ears , " read study researcher Stephen Camarata , professor of earshot and spoken language sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville , Tenn. " It is like they are watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed . "
What ’s more , the researchers found that the wide the clock time window , the poorer a child ’s ability to properly bind brim movements to address — an important mechanism inlanguage learning .
In children with autism , " when audio and optic signals bump during word learning , they do n’t get yoke properly , " said Camarata , who works with autistic children on their linguistic communication and communicating skills . " For example , when I point to a cup on my desk and say ' loving cup ' , the Holy Writ gets bound to the image of the cup . But in children with autism , they might be looking at something else , and then the Book cupful get along and gets bound to the chapeau they are look at . "
conjuring trick
The new written report included 32 typical kid and 32high - functioning children with autism , ages 6 to 18 . Researchers used unsubdivided auditive and ocular stimuli , such as flashes and claxon act on a computing machine , and also more complex environmental stimuli , such as spoken words and a hammer hitting a nail . Scientists asked the participants to say whether the visual and auditive outcome happen at the same metre .
In one solidifying of experiments , the researchers used a healthy - induced flash conjuration , in which hear two beeps deceives most people into thinking they saw two flashes when only one flash has appeared on a projection screen . [ Seevideoof the intelligent - induced flash illusion ]
For the conjuration to sour , the beeps must pass virtually simultaneously with the flash , within a 200 - millisecond window . If the bleep and the flash happen further apart , the auditory and ocular events remain separated in the nous .
However , " in autism , if the flash and the beeps are even as far as half a second apart , people may say there are two jiffy , " Camarata said .
Next , the researchers used another well - known illusion , called theMcGurk effect . In this audiovisual fancy , when the visual factor of one sound is pair off with the auditory component of another speech sound , people bind these signal together and perceive a third sound . For example , when an worker says " ga - ga , " but the audio dubbed over his voice says " ba - ba , " multitude report hearing " district attorney - da . " [ 10 thing You Did n’t Know About the Brain ]
In the new study , child with autism were less likely than typical shaver to bind the information together and report a third sound . Moreover , the wretched their acuity in the first flash - beep task , the lesser was their ability to compound audile and visual information in the second illusion .
Building blocks of terminology
penetration from the results may aid improve therapies for tiddler with autism who have communicating difficulties , the researchers said .
" If we can furbish up this shortfall in early centripetal part , then possibly we can see benefits in linguistic communication and communication and societal interactions , " enounce study researcher Mark Wallace , theater director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute .
Possible therapies may include training the brain to narrow the binding window , or , when learn language , award the words in a style that they are very prominent , Camarata said . " In other words , when I channelize to my coffee cup , I might do it over and over again , in a clear environment , increasing the probability that the word cupful would get restrict to the image of the cup , " he said .
