Children with autism are often faced with sensory processing issues. Every autism specialist has struggled to understand the sensory tricks the condition can play on children’s minds. Now, a newly released study may have the answer: children with autism spectrum disorders have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears.
The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that children with autism experience delays when their brains attempt to process information received by their eyes and their ears at the same time. The result is a blurred picture and sound bite of reality, which is understandably frustration. This causes them to have trouble matching sounds, especially speech, to their sources.
The results of this study are intriguing. With an estimated 1 in 88 children in the United States now being diagnosed with autism, it is important to understand as much as we can about the disorder. While it’s too early to tell whether the findings from this study will lead to further research or autism treatment improvements, the results definitely raise some interesting questions about the relationship between autism disorders and sensory processing.