Autistic children's senses not working overtime

Children with autism process information coming from a number of different sources less well than other children. Researchers from Yeshiva University in New York studied 34 children between the ages of 6 and 16, half of whom had autism. The children watched a silent video of their choice while they were presented with unrelated sounds and vibrations. The children's brain activity was measured by EEG (electroencephalogram) and the unaffected children were found to integrate the extra information from the sounds and vibrations much more effectively. It also took longer for the sensory information to reach the cerebral cortex in the autistic children - 310 miliseconds (ms) - than in the unaffected children (100-200ms).

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