Children with autism respond differently to smells : Study
Children with autism spectrum disorders appear to respond to stinky smells differently from children without autism, a new study found.
The difference was pronounced enough that researchers could tell who had autism and who didnt about 80 percent of the time based only on sniff responses.
The authors have hit upon a novel way of testing differences between children with autism and those without that indeed seems to suggest marked differences in how autistic children process odors, said Dr. Glen Elliott, chief psychiatrist and medical director of Childrens Health Council in Palo Alto, Calif.
Since we know that many children with autism are hypersensitive to touch, sound, taste and visual stimuli, it is especially interesting that they seem not to be responsive to odor in the same fashion, said Elliott, who was not part of the research.
The study may hold clues to the social difficulties children with autism have, the authors suggest.
The sense of smell is in fact a major component of human social interaction, said lead author Liron Rozenkrantz, a Ph.D. student at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Given that olfaction is probably altered in autism, could it be that this is a part of the social challenge in autism?
Results of the study appear in the July 2 issue of the journal Current Biology.
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