Lane Alison E, Molloy Cynthia A, Bishop Somer L
School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia.
Autism Res. 2014 Jun;7(3):322-33. doi: 10.1002/aur.1368. Epub 2014 Mar 17.
This study examines whether sensory differences can be used to classify meaningful subgroups of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Caregivers of children with ASD aged 2-10 years (n = 228) completed the Short Sensory Profile. Model-based cluster analysis was used to extract sensory subtypes. The relationship of these subtypes to age, gender, autism symptom severity, and nonverbal intelligence quotient (IQ) was further explored. Four distinct sensory subtypes were identified: (a) sensory adaptive; (b) taste smell sensitive; (c) postural inattentive; and (d) generalized sensory difference. The sensory subtypes differ from each other on two dimensions: (a) the severity of reported sensory differences; and (b) the focus of differences across auditory, taste, smell, vestibular and proprioceptive domains. Examination of the clinical features of each subtype reveals two possible mechanisms of sensory disturbance in autism: (a) sensory hyperreactivity; and (b) difficulties with multisensory processing. Further, the sensory subtypes are not well explained by other variables such as age, gender, IQ, and autism symptom severity. We conclude that classification of children using sensory differences offers a promising method by which to identify phenotypes in ASD. Sensory-based phenotypes may be useful in identifying behavioral features responsive to specific interventions thereby improving intervention effectiveness. Further validation of the sensory-based phenotypes by establishing neural and physiological correlates is recommended.
本研究探讨了感觉差异是否可用于对自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的有意义亚组进行分类。2至10岁ASD儿童的照顾者（n = 228）完成了《简短感觉概况》。基于模型的聚类分析用于提取感觉亚型。进一步探讨了这些亚型与年龄、性别、自闭症症状严重程度和非言语智商（IQ）之间的关系。确定了四种不同的感觉亚型：（a）感觉适应型；（b）味觉嗅觉敏感型；（c）姿势不专注型；（d）广泛性感觉差异型。这些感觉亚型在两个维度上彼此不同：（a）报告的感觉差异的严重程度；（b）听觉、味觉、嗅觉、前庭和本体感觉领域差异的焦点。对每种亚型临床特征的检查揭示了自闭症中感觉障碍的两种可能机制：（a）感觉反应过度；（b）多感觉处理困难。此外，年龄、性别、智商和自闭症症状严重程度等其他变量并不能很好地解释这些感觉亚型。我们得出结论，利用感觉差异对儿童进行分类提供了一种有前景的方法，可用于识别ASD中的表型。基于感觉的表型可能有助于识别对特定干预有反应的行为特征，从而提高干预效果。建议通过建立神经和生理相关性来进一步验证基于感觉的表型。
