Abstract
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects millions of individuals in the United States, with 1 in 68 American children currently diagnosed. Individuals with ASD exhibit profound planning deficits, in both motor and language. This study considers how anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)—which passes a weak electrical current between two electrodes and facilitates neuronal activity—might be used as a novel rehabilitation technique for children with ASD. Anodal tDCS has been shown to improve motor planning in neurotypical individuals and has been implicated in improving grammar acquisition in children with ASD. Three minimally verbal children with diagnosed or suspected ASD received a low current intensity of tDCS (0.4 mA) for a long duration (90 minutes). Children completed reaction time, balance, and fine motor skill planning tasks before and after receiving tDCS. During stimulation, participants engaged in combined speech/occupational therapy activities. Data collection is limited because of the difficulties in testing this population. However, observations from work have indicated that tDCS is feasible in children with ASD, and tDCS is potentially capable of inducing long-lasting improvements in motor planning and grammar use in children with ASD.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects millions of individuals in the United States—current predictions estimate that 1 in 68 American children have ASD [1]
This study investigated how a form of noninvasive brain stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, might be an effective tool to improve both motor and language abilities in this population when used in conjunction with typical therapeutic interventions
Subjects in this study showed reduced activation between the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the right dentate nucleus of the cerebellum, indicating abnormal frontalcerebellar circuitry in ASD as well [61]
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects millions of individuals in the United States—current predictions estimate that 1 in 68 American children have ASD [1]. Recent functional imaging studies have identified other roles of Broca’s area not related to speech [40], including involvement in the “mirror neuron system,” which allows individuals to recognize and imitate the actions of others [43], and motor ideation, planning [44], and action execution [45]. The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) represents a synthesis of this behavioral and neuroimaging data, suggesting that these abnormalities of the frontal-BG and frontal-cerebellar circuits that subserve the procedural memory system account for the apparent deficits in grammar (but not lexical knowledge) and difficulties with motor planning (especially for highly sequenced motor tasks) that are often seen in ASD [2, 50]. An intervention that targets the cortical/ subcortical areas associated with the procedural memory system should be effective in addressing both the motor planning and grammar deficits in ASD. How might anodal tDCS to improve grammar acquisition affect motor behaviors in children with ASD?
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