The Effects of Hearing One's Own Name on Subsequent Attention to Visual Stimuli in Autistic and Neurotypical Children: An ERP Study.

Purpose: Hearing one's own name produces unique patterns of brain activation which triggers attention and orienting responses to the caller. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) rarely orientate towards people calling their own name, but the extent to which it may facilitate processing of the following external stimuli are not yet clear.

Methods: The current study consisted of both auditory and visual stimuli. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was measured in 28 autistic and neurotypical children (aged 3-7 years) to investigate auditory event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while hearing either their own or an unfamiliar name, and subsequent visual ERPs when viewing objects after hearing them.

Results: The results demonstrated that, unlike neurotypical children, autistic children did not show enhanced P300 responses upon hearing their own name, but exhibited more negative N1 response in the left frontal region to hearing their own name than an unfamiliar name. However, both autistic and neurotypical children showed equivalent changes in N2, P3 and Late positive potential (LPP) visual ERPs when viewing objects after hearing their own name relative to an unfamiliar name.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that autistic children who do not overtly respond to their own name (characterized by a head-turn), nevertheless exhibit increased attention to visual objects in their environment after hearing it. This implies that autistic children do recognize the sound of their name as important but may not understand the social meaning of it.