Multisensory Temporal Integration Deficits in Sensory Processing Disorder

Background:

Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is a neurodevelopment disorder in which both the processing and integration of information across the various sensory modalities is affected. Despite a growing recognition of the prevalence and impact of SPD on activities of daily living, the neural bases for this disorder (or constellation of disorders) has remained elusive. 

Objectives:

In the current study, we attempted to better characterize the nature of the sensory processing changes in a cohort of children with SPD (compared against an appropriate age-matched control group). The focus of the current work was on auditory, visual and combined audiovisual function, and with a preferential emphasis in better detailing the temporal acuity within which auditory and visual stimuli are integrated and perceptually “bound.”

Methods:

Children performed a battery of temporal order judgment (TOJ) and simultaneity judgment (SJ) tasks in which auditory, visual and combine audiovisual stimuli were presented with varied temporal structure. 

Results:

On average, children with SPD were found to integrate audiovisual stimuli over longer temporal intervals when compared with control children, and perhaps more interestingly to show enormous individual variability in this series of measures. Ongoing neuroimaging work is attempting to better understand the neural circuits that underlie these differences, and ongoing psychophysical and neuropsychological assessments is attempting to better understand the contributions of altered (multi)sensory function to higher-order domains of dysfunction.

Conclusions:

These results suggest altered multisensory temporal acuity in children with SPD, and that these changes in multisensory temporal function may play an important contributing role in the constellation of sensory, behavioral, perceptual and cognitive symptoms seen in these children.