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Impaired Timing and Frequency Discrimination in High-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) frequently demonstrate preserved or enhanced frequency perception but impaired timing perception. The present study investigated the processing of spectral and temporal information in 12 adolescents with ASD and 15 age-matched controls. Participants completed two psychoacoustic tasks: one determined frequency difference limens, and the other determined gap detection thresholds. Results showed impaired frequency discrimination at the highest standard frequency in the ASD group but no overall difference between groups. However, when groups were defined by auditory hyper-sensitivity, a group difference arose. For the gap detection task, the ASD group demonstrated elevated thresholds. This supports previous research demonstrating a deficit in ASD in temporal perception and suggests a connection between hyper-sensitivity and frequency discrimination abilities.

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Notes

  1. Auditory hyper-sensitivity is sometimes referred to as hyperacusis, but true hyperacusis refers to lowered hearing thresholds, which are not often demonstrated by children with ASD; thus, here the term "auditory hyper-sensitivity" is used. See Levitin et al. (2005) for a disambiguation of the term "hyperacusis".

  2. Dividing the thresholds by ear and performing this same analysis with Frequency and Group (TD vs ASD) as factors rather than Frequency and AudHS shows similar results, but was not justified because this interaction was not present in the overall mixed-models analysis using the factor Group.

  3. Because of our a priori hypotheses that there would be either right- or left-ear advantages for the two tasks, we directly compared the data from the left and right ears within each group for each task. However, no significant results were found for either the Gap or Frequency tasks.

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Women to AB, as well as funds from the The Help Group—UCLA Autism Research Alliance and the Children’s Music Fund. We thank Elias Ballat and Sophie Kaye for assistance with testing and to all of the participants and their families for their time and effort.

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  1. Anjali Bhatara

    Present address: Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Head and Neck Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 62-132 Center for Health Sciences Box 951624, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1624, USA

    Anjali Bhatara & Yvonne S. Sininger

  2. CNRS (Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, UMR 8158), 45 rue des Saints-Pères, 75006, Paris, France

    Anjali Bhatara

  3. Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA

    Talin Babikian & Elizabeth Laugeson

  4. The Help Group—UCLA Autism Research Alliance, 13164 Burbank Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA, 91401, USA

    Elizabeth Laugeson

  5. Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 10833 Le Conte Ave, CHS 12-430, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Raffi Tachdjian

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Correspondence to Anjali Bhatara.

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Bhatara, A., Babikian, T., Laugeson, E. et al. Impaired Timing and Frequency Discrimination in High-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 43, 2312–2328 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1778-y

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