Every child is special and unique in his own way. No one is the same; even identical twins have slight differences that set each of them apart. That is how things are; we live in a world full of diversity and variations. Autistic children is no different, these kids are also very special and distinct. Despite the limitations they have because of their autism, they still manage to rise up above the challenge and live productive and successful lives. What is autism by the way? And how different are autistic children from non-autistic ones?

 Autism by definition is a neural development disorder, where-in the child manifests and exhibits impaired social interaction, communication, and restrictive or repetitive behavior. The human brain processes information using a complex network of organized nerve cells and synapses, in autism, the organization of this network is disrupted or altered affecting the entire thought and behavior process. Impaired social interaction in autistic children is evidenced by the child’s lack of attention, minimal eye contact, and frequent loneliness; in some cases they also manifest occasional aggression and violence. Majority of autistic children develop impaired communication and have difficulties learning normal speech, they babble, reverse words and mispronounce them. It is common for these children to manifest repetitive, compulsive and ritualistic behavior such as hand flapping, head rolling, body rocking, ritualistic dressing and self-injury. Autism is a genetic disease but is also believed to be caused by several external and environmental factors including the use of heavy metals, exposure to pesticides and childhood vaccines. Children as early as the first 2 years of their lives can already show symptoms of autism and this develops gradually as he grows up. Currently this disease has no cure, only support measures and therapies are available to help the child live a life as close to normal as possible. Now that we have an overview on what an autistic child is, is it true that they process sensory information differently? Do they see, smell, hear, feel and taste things differently?

 According to a new study on how children with autism spectrum disorder processes sensory information conducted by Dr. Sophie Molholm Ph.D. associate professor in the Dominick P. Purpura department of neuroscience and pediatrics, children with autism are overwhelmed with all the sensory information around them, they have difficulty processing multisensory information as well as interpreting it in a meaningful way which explains their autistic behavior. The data gathered for this research was taken using Multisensory Integration (MSI) measurements from Electroencephalogram (EEG) brainwave recordings. The findings show that autistic children are more unisensory than multisensory; they can effectively focus on one sensory stimulus at time, but have difficulties integrating multisensory information. For example, it’s easy for them to watch a silent video but it becomes a bit of a challenge if they listen to music at the same time.

 The findings of Dr. Molholm’s study are significant to the better understanding, management and care for children with autism. This research would be very helpful for future autism related studies.