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Updated: Aug 11, 2025

Testing Sensory and Multisensory Function in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Published on: April 22, 2015
Rapid auditory processing of puretones is associated with basic components of language in individuals with autism
Carly Demopoulos1, Brandon E Kopald2, Nitin Bangera3
1University of California-San Francisco, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, 675 18th Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States; University of California-San Francisco, Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, 513 Parnassus Avenue, S362, San Francisco, CA 94143, United States.
Abstract:
The goal of this study was to identify the specific domains of language that may be affected by deficits in rapid auditory processing in individuals with ASD. Auditory evoked fields were collected from 63 children diagnosed with ASD in order to evaluate processing of puretone sounds presented in rapid succession. Measures of language and its components were assessed via standardized clinical tools to quantify expressive and receptive language, vocabulary, articulation, and phonological processing abilities. Rapid processing was significantly and bilaterally associated with phonological awareness, vocabulary, and articulation. Phonological processing was found to mediate the relationship between rapid processing and language. M100 response latency was not significantly associated with any language measures. Results suggest that rapid processing deficits may impact the basic components of language such as phonological processing, and the downstream effect of this impact may in turn impact overall language development.
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