Abnormal auditory mismatch fields are associated with communication impairment in both verbal and minimally verbal/nonverbal children who have autism spectrum disorder.
Delayed, right-sided brain responses to sound change flag serious communication risk in minimally-verbal children with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Matsuzaki et al. (2019) used a brain scanner called MEG to watch how kids’ brains react to sound changes.
They compared three groups: typically-developing kids, verbal kids with autism, and kids with autism who speak few or no words.
Each child listened to lots of beeps while the machine recorded tiny magnetic fields called MMF.
What they found
Kids who speak little or no words had the slowest MMF responses and the signals came more from the right side of the brain.
Slower, right-sided MMF scores lined up with lower communication scores on standard tests.
Verbal kids with autism landed in the middle; typical kids had the fastest, most left-sided MMF.
How this fits with other research
Vlaskamp et al. (2017) saw the same pattern earlier in verbal children: weaker early brain response to sound change. Junko extends that work by showing the problem is biggest in kids who don’t speak.
Melegari et al. (2025) pooled many studies and found no overall MMN difference between autistic and non-autistic people. The key difference is that the meta-analysis mixed mostly verbal participants; Junko zoomed in on the minimally-verbal group where the delay is clearest.
Chuah et al. (2025) confirm that smaller brain responses to sound track daily living skills, not just social symptoms. Junko’s finding links the same brain measure to spoken communication, adding a second piece to the puzzle.
Why it matters
You can’t run MEG in a clinic, but you can watch for signs of slow auditory processing during everyday tasks. If a child rarely turns to new sounds or takes extra time to react, build extra wait time into your instructions and use clear, consistent auditory cues. Share these observations with the assessment team; they may help justify speech-generating devices or auditory-based interventions.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Insert a two-second pause after you give an auditory instruction and watch if the child reacts faster—then keep that extra wait time in place.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Abnormal auditory discrimination neural processes, indexed by mismatch fields (MMFs) recorded by magnetoencephalography (MEG), have been reported in verbal children with ASD. Association with clinical measures indicates that delayed MMF components are associated with poorer language and communication performance. At present, little is known about neural correlates of language and communication skills in extremely language impaired (minimally-verbal/non-verbal) children who have ASD: ASD-MVNV. It is hypothesized that MMF delays observed in language-impaired but nonetheless verbal children with ASD will be exacerbated in ASD-MVNV. The present study investigated this hypothesis, examining MMF responses bilaterally during an auditory oddball paradigm with vowel stimuli in ASD-MVNV, in a verbal ASD cohort without cognitive impairment and in typically developing (TD) children. The verbal ASD cohort without cognitive impairment was split into those demonstrating considerable language impairment (CELF core language index <85; "ASD-LI") versus those with less or no language impairment (CELF CLI >85; "ASD-V"). Eighty-four participants (8-12 years) were included in final analysis: ASD-MVNV: n = 9, 9.67 ± 1.41 years, ASD: n = 48, (ASD-V: n = 27, 10.55 ± 1.21 years, ASD-LI: n = 21, 10.67 ± 1.20 years) and TD: n = 27, 10.14 ± 1.38 years. Delayed MMF latencies were found bilaterally in ASD-MVNV compared to verbal ASD (both ASD-V and ASD-LI) and TD children. Delayed MMF responses were associated with diminished language and communication skills. Furthermore, whereas the TD children showed leftward lateralization of MMF amplitude, ASD-MVNV and verbal ASD (ASD-V and ASD-LI) showed abnormal rightward lateralization. Findings suggest delayed auditory discrimination processes and abnormal rightward laterality as objective markers of language/communication skills in both verbal and MVNV children who have ASD. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1225-1235. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Brain imaging showed abnormal auditory discrimination processes in minimally-verbal/non-verbal children (MVNV) who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Delays in auditory discrimination were associated with impaired language and communication skills. Findings suggest these auditory neural measures may be objective markers of language and communication skills in both verbal and, previously-understudied, MVNV children who have ASD.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2019 · doi:10.1002/aur.1243