Can People with Autism Integrate Both Sight and Sound at the Same Time?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective was to determine if people with autism have problems integrating sight and sound at the same time. This could help explain why their world is so overstimulating to them. Methods/Materials Eight people with autism and eight people without autism were tested using a powerpoint presentation. The powerpoint presentation flashed twenty simple pictures with a varying number of beeps (1, 2, or 3). Each student told me what they saw and heard after each slide. The first ten slides were with a one second delay. The second ten slides were shown faster using no delay. Results For people with autism, 63% saw all the pictures correctly at the slower speed. At the faster speed, 75% saw all the pictures correctly. At the slower speed, 25% heard the correct number of beeps. At the faster speed, 0% heard the correct number of beeps. For people without autism, 100% saw all the pictures correctly at the slower speed. At the faster speed, 88% saw all the pictures correctly. At the slower speed, 50% heard the correct number of beeps. At the faster speed, 25% heard the correct number of beeps. Conclusions/Discussion People with autism had a harder time integrating both sight and sound at the same time. These results could help people with autism and those that interact with them to concentrate on using one sense over the other.

Competition history

• CSEF 2003 Behavioral Sciences · Entry J0321

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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