Abstract
Five autistic and five normal children were allowed to register a sensory modality preference by bar pressing to select either a visual (slides) or an auditory (music) stimulus. The children were then taught a discrimination between the presence or absence of a compound auditory-visual stimulus (white noise and light). Testing for stimulus overselectivity revealed that the autistic children attended to only one aspect of the compound stimulus. In all cases this was the sensory modality that was selected during the preference test. Significant correlations were obtained between Gesell developmental scores and degree of overselectivity. Normal children registered an equal preference for music and slides and displayed no overselectivity.
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This research was supported in part by Public Health Service grant MH-04665 from the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Kolko, D.J., Anderson, L. & Campbell, M. Sensory preference and overselective responding in autistic children. J Autism Dev Disord 10, 259–271 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02408285
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02408285