Koegel R L, Schreibman L
J Autism Child Schizophr. 1976 Jun;6(2):147-56. doi: 10.1007/BF01538058.
Although the severity of autistic children's unresponsiveness to external stimulation has been frequently reported, little empirical work has been conducted to specifically describe the nature of their unresponsiveness. The child who participated in this experiment was at varying times reported to be deaf, hard of hearing, or functionally deaf; and at other times was reported to have normal hearing. In this experiment, we measured his responses to systematically presented auditory stimuli in order to determine if there was any pattern to his responding. Two types of auditory stimuli were used: (a) white noise, consisting of most of the frequencies within the human range of hearing, and (b) the sound of a candy machine delivering candy. The results showed the following. (1) There was consistent responding to both the white noise and the candy feeder. (2) The thresholds for responding to the white noise were always consistent on a given day, but varied from day to day. (3) Responding to the candy machine stimulus always occurred at sound levels which were well below the threshold for the white noise. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding autism, and in particular in terms of understanding the lack of speech development in mute autistic children.
尽管自闭症儿童对外界刺激无反应的严重程度已有诸多报道，但专门描述其无反应本质的实证研究却很少。参与本实验的儿童曾被多次报道为失聪、听力障碍或功能性失聪；而在其他时候又被报道听力正常。在本实验中，我们测量了他对系统呈现的听觉刺激的反应，以确定其反应是否存在任何模式。使用了两种类型的听觉刺激：（a）白噪声，由人类听力范围内的大部分频率组成，以及（b）糖果机分发糖果的声音。结果如下：（1）对白噪声和糖果分发器都有一致的反应。（2）在给定的一天中，对白噪声的反应阈值总是一致的，但每天都有所不同。（3）对糖果机刺激的反应总是发生在远低于白噪声阈值的声级上。将根据这些结果对理解自闭症的意义进行讨论，特别是对于理解沉默型自闭症儿童语言发展不足的意义。
