An ever-growing literature has aimed to determine how individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) differ from their typically developing (TD) peers on measures of multisensory integration (MSI) and to ascertain the degree to which differences in MSI are associated with the broad range of symptoms associated with ASD. Findings, however, have been highly variable across the studies carried out to date. The present work systematically reviews and quantitatively synthesizes the large literature on audiovisual MSI in individuals with ASD to evaluate the cumulative evidence for (a) group differences between individuals with ASD and TD peers, (b) correlations between MSI and autism symptoms in individuals with ASD and (c) study level factors that may moderate findings (i.e., explain differential effects) observed across studies. To identify eligible studies, a comprehensive search strategy was employed using the ProQuest search engine, PubMed database, forwards and backwards citation searches, direct author contact, and hand-searching of select conference proceedings. A significant between-group difference in MSI was evident in the literature, with individuals with ASD demonstrating worse audiovisual integration on average across studies compared to TD controls. This effect was moderated by mean participant age, such that between-group differences were more pronounced in younger samples. The mean correlation between MSI and autism and related symptomatology was also significant, indicating that increased audiovisual integration in individuals with ASD is associated with better language/communication abilities and/or reduced autism symptom severity in the extant literature. This effect was moderated by whether the stimuli were linguistic versus non-linguistic in nature, such that correlation magnitudes tended to be significantly greater when linguistic stimuli were utilized in the measure of MSI. Limitations and future directions for primary and meta-analytic research are discussed.

越来越多的文献旨在确定患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的人与他们典型发展中的（TD）同伴在多感官整合（MSI）方面的差异，并确定MSI差异与广泛差异相关的程度与自闭症相关的症状范围。然而，迄今为止，研究结果之间存在很大差异。本工作系统地回顾和定量综合了ASD患者视听MSI的大量文献，以评估以下方面的累积证据：（a）ASD患者与TD同伴之间的群体差异；（b）MSD与ASD患者自闭症症状之间的相关性（c）研究水平的因素可能会缓和跨研究发现的结果（即，解释不同的影响）。为了确定合格的研究，使用了ProQuest搜索引擎，PubMed数据库，向前和向后引文搜索，作者直接联系以及对精选会议录进行手工搜索的综合搜索策略。在文献中，MSI之间存在显着的组间差异，与TD对照相比，患有ASD的个体在研究中平均显示出更差的视听整合。通过平均参与者年龄减轻了这种影响，因此在年轻样本中组间差异更为明显。MSI与自闭症和相关症状之间的平均相关性也很显着，提示在现有文献中，患有ASD的人视听整合度的提高与更好的语言/交流能力和/或自闭症症状严重程度降低有关。通过本质上是语言对非语言刺激来缓和这种影响，因此当在MSI的度量中使用语言刺激时，相关程度往往会更大。讨论了主要和荟萃分析研究的局限性和未来发展方向。