Why the study?
Does heart rate variability differ between autistic children and normal children, and how does it relate to behavior?
Does heart rate variability differ between autistic children and normal children, and how does it relate to behavior?
Autistic children exhibit higher, behavior-dependent heart rate variability compared to normal children, peaking during stereotyped behaviors.
Autonomic differences suggested in autistic children; hypothesis-generating for behavior-linked HRV and needs prospective confirmation.
The behavior and heart rate of autistic children were simultaneously videorecorded in a standard situation. Normal children of two age-groups were also studied. It was found that the heart rate of the autists was characteristically highly variable and more so than that of normal children of the same age or younger. This variability (arrhythmia) however, was behaviour-dependent in all children-involvement in a task resulting in suppresion of the arrhythmia. It was at a maximum in the autists during the performance of stereotyped behaviours. The functional implications of these behaviour-heart rate associations are discussed.
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Hutt et al. (1975) studied this question.
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