Behavioral and Brain Functions

Background Children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), such as children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), often show auditory processing deficits related to their overarching language impairment. Auditory training programs such as Fast ForWord Language may potentially alleviate these deficits through training-induced improvements in auditory processing. Methods To assess the impact of auditory training on auditory function in children with ASD, brainstem and cortical responses to speech sounds presented in quiet and noise were collected from five children with ASD who completed Fast ForWord training. Results Relative to six control children with ASD who did not complete Fast ForWord, training-related changes were found in brainstem response timing (three children) and pitch-tracking (one child), and cortical response timing (all five children) after Fast ForWord use. Conclusions These results provide an objective indication of the benefit of training on auditory function for some children with ASD. Background Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD), such as children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), autism, Asperger’s syndrome, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, demonstrate some level of impairment in the social and communicative use of language, social interactions, and imaginative and symbolic play, with an onset prior to the age of 3 years [1-3]. Some children with ASD have difficulties processing speech in background noise [4, 5]. To this effect, emerging evidence suggests that the neural encoding of speech sounds may be impaired in these children [6-11]. Some children with ASD exhibit auditory brainstem processing deficits specific to speech stimuli [9, 10], such as deficits in neural synchrony (timing) and phase locking (periodicity encoding; transcription of pitch contour), as well as degradation of the morphology of the responses in quiet and background noise, despite normal click-evoked brainstem responses. Reduced amplitude, delayed timing, and overall degraded morphology of cortical responses to speech syllables have also been reported in children with ASD relative to typically-developing (TD) children [6-8, 11, 12]. Several interventions targeting language, social skills, and auditory processing have been implemented for children with ASD (e.g., [13-18], see also the National Autism Center’s National Standards Project report [19]). Given the variable nature of ASD, it is not surprising that treatment options and success vary across individuals. Thus, although studies show promise of success, further research is still needed to distinguish appropriate interventions for a specific