Research Study Summary
Sensory Processing and Integration in Autism
Purpose of the study: The Children’s Research Unit at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University are currently recruiting participants for a research study that examines whether multisensory integration
Research Study Summary
Sensory Processing and Integration in Autism
Purpose of the study: The Children’s Research Unit at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University are currently recruiting participants for a research study that examines whether multisensory integration (the brain’s processing of information from different senses) is impaired in people with autism.
Protocol summary: Information from the various sensory systems combine to form a single seamlessly integrated "multisensory" experience of the world and as such, sensory integration processes in the brain are fundamental to normal sensory, perceptual and cognitive function. Cardinal symptoms of autism include deficits in socialization, communication, and adaptive functioning and the condition is often accompanied by hypo- or hyper- sensitivity to sound, light, and touch (Kanner, 1943; Kern, Trivedi, Grannemann, Garver, Johnson, Andrews et al., 2007). It has long been proposed, based on clinical observations, that dysfunction in multisensory integration may be a major component of autism (Larocciand MacDonald, 2006). Rather remarkably, to our knowledge, there are as yet no direct investigations of the underlying neurophysiology of sensory integration deficits in the literature for this population. This research group is presently undertaking a major effort to characterize the "normal" neurophysiology of sensory integration in ty