Event-related potential response to auditory social stimuli, parent-reported social communicative deficits and autism risk in school-aged children with congenital visual impairment

Joe Bathelt,Naomi Dale,Michelle De Haan

doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2017.07.003

Abstract

Communication with visual signals, like facial expression, is important in early social development, but the question if these signals are necessary for typical social development remains to be addressed. The potential impact on social development of being born with no or very low levels of vision is therefore of high theoretical and clinical interest. The current study investigated event-related potential responses to basic social stimuli in a rare group of school-aged children with congenital visual disorders of the anterior visual system (globe of the eye, retina, anterior optic nerve). Early-latency event-related potential responses showed no difference between the VI and control group, suggesting similar initial auditory processing. However, the mean amplitude over central and right frontal channels between 280 and 320 ms was reduced in response to own-name stimuli, but not control stimuli, in children with VI suggesting differences in social processing. Children with VI also showed an increased rate of autistic-related behaviours, pragmatic language deficits, as well as peer relationship and emotional problems on standard parent questionnaires. These findings suggest that vision may be necessary for the typical development of social processing across modalities.

Highlights

The ability of adults to infer the mental state of others by interpreting fleeting contractions of facial muscles is an amazing feat of our species
We propose that differences in the processing of auditory social stimuli in congenital visual impairment (VI) may have arisen as a consequence of reduced or missing input from areas involved in the processing of visual social information, which lead to downstream effects on the development of the social processing network
The current study investigated if social difficulties and deficits in high-functioning children with congenital VI are associated with different processing of basic auditory social stimuli using the event-related potentials method

Summary

Introduction

The ability of adults to infer the mental state of others by interpreting fleeting contractions of facial muscles is an amazing feat of our species. Reduced visual attention to these cues has been found in disorders of social development and some theories suggest a causal link between attending to facial communication cues and social deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Campbell et al, 2006). Children with congenital visual impairment (VI) may be at higher risk of social deficits. They provide a natural experiment to study the effects of absent vision from birth on the development of social cognition and behaviour. The current study, sets out to investigate if differences in social responses and behaviour, including social communicative/ASD risks, are found between children with congenital VI and typically-sighted controls, with a particular focus on neural responses toauditory social stimuli and their associations with parentreported measures of social communicative and behavioural function and risk

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Discussion

Conclusion