From Sensory Perception to Lexical-Semantic Processing: An ERP Study in Non-Verbal Children with Autism

Chiara Cantiani, Naseem A Choudhury, Yan H Yu, Valerie L Shafer, Richard G Schwartz and April A Benasich

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-31

Abstract: This study examines electrocortical activity associated with visual and auditory sensory perception and lexical-semantic processing in nonverbal (NV) or minimally-verbal (MV) children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Currently, there is no agreement on whether these children comprehend incoming linguistic information and whether their perception is comparable to that of typically developing children. Event-related potentials (ERPs) of 10 NV/MV children with ASD and 10 neurotypical children were recorded during a picture-word matching paradigm. Atypical ERP responses were evident at all levels of processing in children with ASD. Basic perceptual processing was delayed in both visual and auditory domains but overall was similar in amplitude to typically-developing children. However, significant differences between groups were found at the lexical-semantic level, suggesting more atypical higher-order processes. The results suggest that although basic perception is relatively preserved in NV/MV children with ASD, higher levels of processing, including lexical- semantic functions, are impaired. The use of passive ERP paradigms that do not require active participant response shows significant potential for assessment of non-compliant populations such as NV/MV children with ASD.

Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161637 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 61637&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0161637

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0161637

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().