A custom magnetoencephalography device reveals brain connectivity and high reading/decoding ability in children with autism

Abstract

A subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) performs more proficiently on certain visual tasks than may be predicted by their general cognitive performances. However, in younger children with ASD (aged 5 to 7), preserved ability in these tasks and the neurophysiological correlates of their ability are not well documented. In the present study, we used a custom child-sized magnetoencephalography system and demonstrated that preserved ability in the visual reasoning task was associated with rightward lateralisation of the neurophysiological connectivity between the parietal and temporal regions in children with ASD. In addition, we demonstrated that higher reading/decoding ability was also associated with the same lateralisation in children with ASD. These neurophysiological correlates of visual tasks are considerably different from those that are observed in typically developing children. These findings indicate that children with ASD have inherently different neural pathways that contribute to their relatively preserved ability in visual tasks.