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This study investigated the accuracy of musical pitch detection in children with autistic spectrum disorders as compared with typically developing children. Seventeen children on the autistic spectrum (M^sub age^ = 9.34, SD^sub age^ = 1.12) and 13 typically developing, chronological age-matched children (M^sub age^ = 9.13, SD^sub age^ = 1.68) took part in the current study. Children were required to listen to four tones, which were paired with four different pictures and asked to learn the combinations. The children were then assessed for their ability to identify the previously learned tones, when they were presented as single tones and when they were embedded in chords and discords. No significant group differences were found. However, after subdividing the clinical group according to their diagnosis of autism or Asperger's syndrome, the results indicated a slightly superior disembedding ability in participants with Asperger's syndrome. The findings are discussed in terms of the weak central coherence concept.
Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD1; i.e. autism and Asperger's syndrome) are characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication and imagination (Wing's triad), along with restricted interests and activities. In addition, the cognitive skill profiles of people with ASD are unusual. People with ASD seem more likely to develop islets of ability, savant skills, and exceptional rote memory (Frith & Happé, 1994; Shah & Frith, 1993). Savant skills in music, drawing, maths, and memory occur about 10 times more often in autistic individuals than in others with equivalent levels of learning disability (around 1 in 10 people with autism; Happé, 1999). As Happé has pointed out, an understanding of the good or exceptional cognitive skills seen in populations with ASD must inform our models of the cognitive processes underlying ASD.
Frith (1989) postulated a cognitive approach called weak central coherence (WCC). According to Frith, normal information processing is characterized by a drive to integrate information in context, that is, to process information globally (Frith, 1989; Jolliffe & Baron-Cohen, 2001). This tendency (central coherence) appears to be weak in people with ASD resulting in a 'specific imbalance in integration of information at different levels' (Frith & Happé, 1994, p. 121). It is argued that individuals with ASD find it difficult to integrate constituting elements into a 'coherent unit' (impaired global processing) and show a...