Please. Use. Fewer. Words. Slower, Too.

Autistic brains process sound slower than nonautistic ones.

…researchers discovered what they believe are “signatures of autism” that show a delay in processing individual sounds.

That delay is only a fraction of a second, but when it’s for every sound, the lag time can cascade into a major obstacle in speaking and understanding people, the researchers said.

Imagine if it took a tiny bit longer than normal to understand each syllable. By the end of a whole sentence, you’d be pretty confused.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia had 64 autistic children ages 6 to 15 listen through headphones to a series of rapid beeps while under the helmet-like device, which recorded the brain’s response to the sounds. Those brain waves, shown as highlighted areas on an imaging screen, were compared with responses in a group of non-autistic children.

In autistic children, response to each sound was delayed by one-fiftieth of a second.

Yet another reminder to speak slowly and clearly, and to wait for a response. I tend to pile more and more words on, when I don’t think I’m being understood, and in this case it likely just makes it worse!

5 thoughts on “Please. Use. Fewer. Words. Slower, Too.

  1. “Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia had 64 autistic children ages 6 to 15 listen through headphones to a series of rapid beeps while under the helmet-like device, which recorded the brain’s response to the sounds.”

    Well, gee, that sounds like a barrel of fun. : Interesting and important to remember findings, though.

  2. This is documented for Zane when he did the sedated hearing test. He is on the high end for an APD, but it is a signifigant delay compared to “normal” hearing.

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