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Updated: Aug 13, 2025

Using the Visual World Paradigm to Study Sentence Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism
Published on: October 3, 2018
Structural brain abnormalities and their association with language impairment in school-aged children with Autism
Vardan Arutiunian1, Militina Gomozova2, Alina Minnigulova2
1Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development, Seattle Children's Research Institute, 1920 Terry Ave., Seattle, WA, 98101, USA. vardan.arutyunyan89@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Language impairment is comorbid in most children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) but its neural basis is poorly understood. Using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the present study provides the whole-brain comparison of both volume- and surface-based characteristics between groups of children with and without ASD and investigates the relationships between these characteristics in language-related areas and the language abilities of children with ASD measured with standardized tools. A total of 36 school-aged children participated in the study: 18 children with ASD and 18 age- and sex-matched typically developing controls. The results revealed that multiple regions differed between groups of children in gray matter volume, gray matter thickness, gyrification, and cortical complexity (fractal dimension). White matter volume and sulcus depth did not differ between groups of children in any region. Importantly, gray matter thickness and gyrification of language-related areas were related to language functioning in children with ASD. Thus, the results of the present study shed some light on the structural brain abnormalities associated with language impairment in ASD.
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