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Published on: July 31, 2017
Development of Auditory Evoked Responses in Normally Developing Preschool Children and Children with Autism Spectrum
Julia M Stephen1, Dina E Hill, Amanda Peters
1The Mind Research Network, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
Insights
Auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) latencies mature differently in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to typically developing children. AEF peak latencies did not decrease with age in ASD children, unlike in controls, indicating altered auditory development.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Audiology
Background:
- Cortical responses to auditory stimuli change rapidly in early childhood.
- Previous research on auditory evoked responses often excluded infants and toddlers.
- Auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) analysis offers insights into early auditory development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the maturation of auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) latencies in normally developing (ND) children from 6 to 68 months.
- To compare AEF maturation patterns between ND children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
- To determine if AEF latencies decrease with age in children with ASD, as observed in ND children.
Main Methods:
- Utilized auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) topography to analyze auditory components in sleeping children.
- Recorded AEFs in response to tone bursts in 48 ND children (6-68 months) and 16 children with ASD (24-62 months).
- Compared peak latencies of AEFs between ND and ASD groups across different age ranges.
Main Results:
- AEF peak latencies decreased with age in ND children, consistent with prior studies.
- In children with ASD, AEF peak latencies did not show a decrease with age.
- Mean AEF latencies were longer in the ASD group compared to age-matched ND children.
Conclusions:
- Children with ASD exhibit a different maturational pattern of auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) latencies compared to ND children.
- The findings suggest delays and altered maturation in the auditory system of children with ASD.
- Longitudinal studies are recommended to confirm the divergence of AEF latencies between ND and ASD children around 3 years of age.
Abstract:
The cortical responses to auditory stimuli undergo rapid and dramatic changes during the first 3 years of life in normally developing (ND) children, with decreases in latency and changes in amplitude in the primary peaks. However, most previous studies have focused on children >3 years of age. The analysis of data from the early stages of development is challenging because the temporal pattern of the evoked responses changes with age (e.g., additional peaks emerge with increasing age) and peak latency decreases with age. This study used the topography of the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) to identify the auditory components in ND children between 6 and 68 months (n = 48). The latencies of the peaks in the AEF produced by a tone burst (ISI 2 ± 0.2 s) during sleep decreased with age, consistent with previous reports in awake children. The peak latencies of the AEFs in ND children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were compared. Previous studies indicate that the latencies of the initial components of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) and the AEF are delayed in children with ASD when compared to age-matched ND children >4 years of age. We speculated whether the AEF latencies decrease with age in children diagnosed with ASD as in ND children, but with uniformly longer latencies before the age of about 4 years. Contrary to this hypothesis, the peak latencies did not decrease with age in the ASD group (24-62 months, n = 16) during sleep (unlike in the age-matched controls), although the mean latencies were longer in the ASD group as in previous studies. These results are consistent with previous studies indicating delays in auditory latencies, and they indicate a different maturational pattern in ASD children and ND children. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm whether the AEF latencies diverge with age, starting at around 3 years, in these 2 groups of children.
