Early Sensory Profile in Autism Spectrum Disorders Predicts Emotional and Behavioral Issues

Abstract

Background: Abnormal sensory reactivity is considered one of the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and has been associated with autism severity, poorer functional outcomes, and behavioral difficulties across the lifespan. Its early characterization could provide valuable insights into the processes favoring the instantiation of maladaptive behaviors. Objectives: The present study has two aims: (1) to describe the sensory profile of preschool children with ASD compared with an age-matched population of children with a diagnosis of language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) control peers; (2) to explore within each group whether the sensory alterations play a predictive role in the instantiation of emotional and behavioral issues. Methods: The parents of 42 ASD, 18 DLD, and 56 TD filled out the Sensory Processing Measure—Preschool (SPM-P). To gather information on competencies, behaviors, and emotional problems of children, the Child Behavior Checklist 1½-5 (CBCL 1½-5) was also administered. Results: On the SPM-P, ASD and DLD samples generally had scores more compromised than control peers. The contrast between ASD and DLD was reflected in a higher (and highly significant) impairment on the social participation and hearing subscales, suggesting a greater sensitivity and a possible specificity of these scores for ASD. More importantly, linear regression analyses revealed a strong and predictive association for ASD children with SPM total scores explaining more than 50% of the variance of the CBCL 1½-5 total scores (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Our findings reinforce the need to detect the abnormal sensory profiles of ASD already at an early stage and during clinical evaluations. Due to the impact on the emotional and behavioral manifestations, such a procedure has significant clinical and social implications, potentially guiding the development of new interventions relying on multisensory strategies.

Recurrent impairments in visual perception and place avoidance across autism models are causally linked in the haploinsufficiency model of intellectual disabilitySetd5

“…Specifically, in the Setd5 haploinsufficient model, we found that a key behavioural node, the PAG [49], functions as an interface between sensory, limbic and motor circuits that, when disrupted, causally affects seemingly unrelated behaviours. This appears to be related to observations in people with ASD, where the severity of sensory processing impairments is related to the severity of core symptoms associated with autism [18][19][20]. Future studies designed to dissect the causal relationships between innate sensorimotor deficits, such as LER, and core ASD behavioural symptoms, such as social and communication difficulties, will be a revealing avenue to build a comprehensive view of ASD.…”

“…Here we show that the study of innate defensive behaviours, a perceptual task, provides a convergent behavioural framework that enables the directed analysis of the underlying sensorimotor processes up to the molecular level, permitting comparative dissections of the neuronal dysfunctions across ASD models and a systematic understanding of the neuronal mechanisms underlying the cooccurrence of behavioural traits. This is particularly interesting as the severity of sensory and perceptual impairments has been strongly linked to the strength and expression of traditional, non-sensory ASD traits [18][19][20].…”

Shared behavioural impairments in visual perception and place avoidance across different autism models are driven by periaqueductal grey hypoexcitability in Setd5 haploinsufficient mice

“…Deficits in sensation are seemingly separate phenomena from the more studied cognitive impairments in ASD, believed to arise from cortical malfunctions [15][16][17]. However, their close association indicates the possibility of a common underlying thread, particularly because their severity is associated with the strength and expression of other ASD traits [18][19][20]. Such evidence has recently implicated SC pathway impairments with atypical sensory and cognitive processing [6,14].…”

A multidimensional investigation of the relationship between skin-mediated somatosensory signals, emotion regulation and behavior problems in autistic children

“…This abnormal brain activity is characterized by general cortical excitability, deficiency of the inhibitory networks, altered filtering, altered discrimination of tactile inputs, altered habituation to tactile inputs and impaired higher-order multisensory integration ( Woodward et al, 2017 ; Sapey-Triomphe et al, 2019 ; Zetler et al, 2019 ; Iannone and De Marco García, 2021 ). Atypical responses to sensory stimuli in autistic individuals have been associated with poor functional outcomes and social competence, thus impacting on quality of life and participation ( Roley et al, 2015 ; Failla et al, 2017 ; Fabbri-Destro et al, 2022 ; Surgent et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Problematic emotional states and maladaptive behavior (i.e., aggression or fear) have been associated with a higher odds of having abnormal sensory features ( Kirby et al, 2022 ): anxiety has been associated with sensory over-responsivity ( Vasa et al, 2020 ); and infants with greater fear or shyness presented with higher perceptual sensitivity during childhood ( Narvekar et al, 2022 ). Moreover, a predictive association of sensory difficulties explained more than 50% of the variance of behavior problems ( Fabbri-Destro et al, 2022 ). As an example, auditory hyper-reactivity has been suggested to be responsible of interrupting behavior adaptation in autistic children ( Takahashi et al, 2016 ).…”