Audiovisual temporal binding window narrows with age in autistic individuals.

Abstract

Atypical sensory perception has been recognized in autistic individuals since its earliest descriptions and is now considered a key characteristic of autism. Although the integration of sensory information (multisensory integration; MSI) has been demonstrated to be altered in autism, less is known about how this perceptual process differs with age. This study aimed to assess the integration of audiovisual information across autistic children and adolescents. MSI was measured using a non-social, simultaneity judgment task. Variation in temporal sensitivity was evaluated via Gaussian curve fitting procedures, allowing us to compare the width of temporal binding windows (TBWs), where wider TBWs indicate less sensitivity to temporal alignment. We compared TBWs in age and IQ matched groups of autistic (n= 32) and neurotypical (NT; n= 73) children and adolescents. The sensory profile of all participants was also measured. Across all ages assessed (i.e., 6 through 18 years), TBWs were negatively correlated with age in the autistic group. A significant correlation was not found in the NT group. When compared as a function of child (6-12 years) and adolescent (13-18 years) age groups, a significant interaction of group (autism vs NT) by age group was found, whereby TBWs became narrower with age in the autistic, but not neurotypical group. We also found a significant main effect of age and no significant main effect of group. Results suggest that TBW differences between autistic and neurotypical groups diminishes with increasing age, indicating an atypical developmental profile of MSI in autism which ameliorates across development.