| Sustained attention is defined here as the ability to voluntarily maintain the focus of attention to infrequently occurring critical events.It is also called vigilance and is an essential component of attention.At present,the studies about whether children with Autism Spectrum Disorder have sustained attention disorder are not consistent.In addition,there is a lack of research on how different sounds in the daily environment effect the of ASD children’s auditory sustained attention.Therefore,this study uses Auditory Continuous Performance Test(ACPT)to explore the characteristics of auditory sustained attention in children with ASD.In this study,22 school-age autistic children were selected as the study group,and 23(4-6 years old)normal children whose PPVT language IQ was matched to the autistic children were used as control group.Aim of the study to detect different auditory sustained attention characteristics via control different background sound conditions.Three dependent variables are obtained:(a)Omission errors are total number of missed targets and represent inattention or the child’s inability to remain focused on the task;(b)commissions represent the failure of the participant to inhibit a response for which a drive state has been established,and as such are a measure of the self-regulation or inhibitory control;(c)mean response time is the average response latency for correct hits and,in this context,is thought to measure the response preparation component.The main research contents and results of this study include the following aspects:1.Auditory sustained attention characteristics in children with ASD under different types of background soundExperiment 1 investigated the characteristics of autistic children’s auditory sustained attention characteristics in different types of sound(music,environment sound,speech sound),while taking control of the children’s psychological state(mood)and the intensity,duration,speed and the SNR.The results show that in terms of response time,children with autism have the longest reaction time under the speech sound condition,the environmental sound is the second,and the response time under the music sound condition is the shortest.In terms of omission errors,speech sound conditions are the most,environmental sounds are the second,and musical sound conditions are the least.Regarding commissions,the differences in sound types were not significant,and there was a significant difference between children’s types.The number of commissions children with autistic were significantly greater than that of ordinary children,and children with autistic were highly impulsive.2.Auditory sustained attention characteristics in children with ASD with or without musical sound conditionsExperiment 2 investigated the characteristics of autistic children’s auditory sustained attention characteristics with or without music,while taking control of the children’s psychological state(mood)and the intensity,duration,speed and the SNR.The results show that in terms of RT,the response time under musical sound conditions is significantly shorter than the quiet condition.In the case of omission errors,omission errors under musical sound conditions are also significantly less than in quiet condition.In terms of commissions,there was no significant difference in the presence or absence of music.The number of commissions children with autistic were significantly greater than normal children,and children with autistic were higher impulsive.3.Auditory sustained attention characteristics in children with ASD under different SNR(Signal-Noise-Ratio)Experiment 3 investigated the characteristics of autistic children’s auditory sustained attention characteristics in different SNR(SNR=-8,SNR=0,SNR=8),while taking control of the children’s psychological state(mood)and the intensity,duration,speed and the background sound.The results show that in terms of RT,the RT under both the middle and the high SNR is significantly shorter than the low SNR condition.In the case of omission errors,the middle SNR is the lowest,the high SNR is the second,and the maximum is the low SNR.In terms of commissions errors,the difference between different SNR was not significant,and the commissions number of children with ASD were significantly larger than that of ordinary children.Conclusion:(1)Compared with ordinary children,ASD children had no significant difference in the response time and omission error of sustained attention,and the impulsivity was significantly higher than that of ordinary children.(2)Compared with musical sounds,speech and environmental sounds are not conducive to the auditory sustained attention performance of ASD children.Musical sounds in the condition of middle and high SNR are conducive to ASD children’s auditory sustained attention,and it is opposite in low SNR.The significance and innovations of this study are:(1)explored the characteristics of sustained attention in auditory channels in children with autism spectrum disorders in China;(2)Combined with the daily environment,the effects of background sound type and SNR on the persistence of auditory sustained attention were examined;(3)Rehabilitation suggestions were proposed for ASD children’s auditory sustained attention: In daily rehabilitation training,middle or high signal-to-noise ratio can be used to promote ASD children’s auditory sustained attention. |
