The effect of the presentation of visual and auditory stimuli on the breathing patterns of two girls with Rett syndrome.
Attention-grabbing sights and sounds make breathing worse for girls with Rett syndrome.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two girls with Rett syndrome sat quietly while the team flashed lights and played sounds.
The researchers watched each breath to see if the stimuli changed the already uneven rhythm.
They ran short sessions with and without the lights and sounds to compare breathing patterns.
What they found
Both girls breathed even more irregularly when the lights or sounds came on.
The stimuli that grabbed attention made the brainstem breathing control slip further.
Quiet baseline periods gave the steadiest breaths; stimulation periods gave the wildest swings.
How this fits with other research
Bergström-Isacsson et al. (2014) later played music to girls with Rett and saw mixed but reliable autonomic reactions.
Their music sometimes calmed and sometimes aroused, yet Duker et al. (1996) found only worsening breaths.
The difference is the type of sound: soft preferred songs versus sharp attention-getting beeps and flashes.
Matson et al. (2004) used the same single-case method on hand stereotypy and also saw little change, showing that both breathing and hand movements in Rett resist quick environmental fixes.
Why it matters
If you work with Rett syndrome, keep the room calm before working on breathing or feeding.
Swap bright toys and loud praise for gentle visual cues and soft voices.
Track breaths during sessions; if patterns fall apart, lower stimulation and give recovery time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The respiration patterns of individuals with Rett syndrome are known to be dysrhythmic during wakefulness, suggesting cortical involvement of brainstem respiratory control. To investigate this involvement further, the waking breathing patterns of two girls with Rett syndrome were analysed during three phases: a quiet phase, and two phases during which visual and auditory stimuli were presented in controlled intervals. Differences were noted between the two subjects' respiratory patterns in both the quiet and stimulation phases. The usual quiet respiration patterns became more dysrhythmic for both girls during stimulation, with shortened breathing cycles and lengthened apnoeic pauses for the one subject, and increased numbers of apnoeic pauses and shallower breaths for the other. These results suggest that the cyclical brainstem control of breathing patterns in Rett syndrome may be subject to disruption as a result of cortical influences, including arousal subsequent to the engagement of attention.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 1996 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.1996.tb00628.x