Child Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Bosisio Parini, Lecco, Italy.
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) University of Toronto (Canada), Toronto, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jan 15;8(1):715. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-19009-y.
Early identification of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is crucial for the formulation of effective intervention programs. Language deficits may be a hallmark feature of ASD and language delay observed in ASD shows striking similarities to that observed in children with language impairment (LI). Auditory processing deficits are seen in both LI and ASD, however, they have not previously been compared directly using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) in the two at-risk populations. This study aims to characterize infants at-risk for ASD (HR-ASD) at the electrophysiological level and to compare them with infants at-risk for LI (HR-LI) and controls, to find specific markers with predictive value. At 12-month-old, auditory processing in HR-ASD, HR-LI and controls was characterized via ERP oddball paradigm. All infants were then evaluated at 20 months, to investigate the associations between auditory processing and language/ASD-related outcomes. In both HR-ASD and HR-LI, mismatch response latency was delayed compared to controls, whereas only HR-ASD showed overall larger P3 amplitude compared to controls. Interestingly, these ERP measures correlated with later expressive vocabulary and M-CHAT critical items in the whole sample. These results may support the use of objective measurement of auditory processing to delineate pathophysiological mechanisms in ASD, as compared to LI.
早期识别自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）对于制定有效的干预计划至关重要。语言缺陷可能是 ASD 的一个显著特征，而 ASD 中观察到的语言延迟与语言障碍（LI）儿童中观察到的语言延迟惊人地相似。LI 和 ASD 中都存在听觉处理缺陷，但以前并未使用事件相关电位（ERPs）在这两个高危人群中直接进行比较。本研究旨在从电生理水平上描述自闭症高危婴儿（HR-ASD），并将其与语言障碍高危婴儿（HR-LI）和对照组进行比较，以找到具有预测价值的特定标志物。在 12 个月大时，通过 ERP oddball 范式对 HR-ASD、HR-LI 和对照组的听觉处理进行了描述。然后，所有婴儿在 20 个月大时进行评估，以研究听觉处理与语言/ASD 相关结果之间的关系。在 HR-ASD 和 HR-LI 中，与对照组相比，错配反应潜伏期延迟，而只有 HR-ASD 显示出与对照组相比整体上更大的 P3 振幅。有趣的是，这些 ERP 测量值与整个样本中稍后的表达性词汇和 M-CHAT 关键项目相关。这些结果可能支持使用听觉处理的客观测量来描绘 ASD 中的病理生理机制，而不是 LI。
