Children With Autism Need To Be Taught In Smaller Groups, Experts Argue

ScienceDaily (July 4, 2009) — Since the 1970s, there has been much debate surrounding the fact that individuals with autism have difficulty in understanding speech in situations where there is background speech or noise.

At the annual meeting of the International Multisensory Research Forum (June 29th – July 2nd) being held at The City College of New York (CCNY), neuroscientists argue in favor of smaller class sizes for children with autism.

Speaking at the conference, Dr. John J. Foxe, Professor of Neuroscience at CCNY said: “Sensory integration dysfunction has long been speculated to be a core component of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but there has been precious little hard empirical evidence to support this notion. Viewing a speaker’s articulatory movements can greatly improve a listener’s ability to understand spoken words, and this is especially the case under noisy environmental conditions.”

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