Computerized EEG analyses of autistic children

Earlier EEG research on autism had suffered from biased samples, non-standard methods and weak control groups. This study used computerized EEG analysis to compare low-functioning autistic children with typically developing children of the same age, children with intellectual disability of the same age, and typically developing toddlers matched for mental age. The autistic children showed more slow-wave activity, less alpha and less asymmetry within and between hemispheres than both same-age groups, and their EEG looked most like that of the toddlers, which the authors read as a lag in brain maturation.