This study purports to bridge the gap in research directed at people with Low Functioning Autism (LFA) by exploring if sensory discrimination ability can be used to assess cognitive functioning in children with LFA. The study was done in two phases: (i) a pilot phase (with 4 male participants; mean age = 3 years 6.5 months)—which tried to validate whether the paradigm of ‘visual paired comparison’ procedure (Fantz, Science, 146, 668–670, 1964) can be effectively used in measurement of perceptual judgment of LFA, diagnosed on the basis of ‘Autism Diagnostic Checklist’ by Banerjee (Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, 34, 83–93, 2007). (ii) A main phase (with 20 participants; male = 18, female = 2; mean age = 4 years 8 months)—which determined sensory discrimination ability in LFA in the auditory and visual modality and related the findings with the sensory threshold of the children by using ‘The Sensory Profile’ (Kumar and Banerjee, Development of sensory integration therapeutic module for autism and its effect on some functional areas of autism. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, 2011). The results reveal that the ‘Visual Paired Comparison’ paradigm can be used as a tool to discern sensory discrimination ability in children with Low Functioning Autism. Also, sensory discrimination can be used to differentiate the cognitive ability of children with Low Functioning Autism. The behavioural repertoire of sensory discrimination is associated with the sensory threshold of the participants.

本研究旨在通过探索感官辨别能力是否可用于评估 LFA 儿童的认知功能来弥合针对低功能自闭症 (LFA) 患者的研究差距。该研究分两个阶段进行：(i) 试验阶段（有 4 名男性参与者；平均年龄 = 3 岁 6.5 个月）——试图验证“视觉配对比较”程序的范式是否有效（Fantz，Science，146， 668–670, 1964) 可以有效地用于测量 LFA 的感知判断，根据 Banerjee 的“自闭症诊断清单”进行诊断（印度临床心理学杂志, 34, 83–93, 2007)。(ii) 一个主要阶段（有 20 名参与者；男性 = 18 名，女性 = 2 名；平均年龄 = 4 岁 8 个月）——确定 LFA 在听觉和视觉模式中的感觉辨别能力，并将发现与感觉阈值相关联通过使用“感官档案”（Kumar 和 Banerjee，自闭症感觉统合治疗模块的开发及其对自闭症某些功能区域的影响）. 未发表的博士论文，2011）。结果表明，“视觉配对比较”范式可以用作辨别低功能自闭症儿童感官辨别能力的工具。此外，感官辨别可用于区分低功能自闭症儿童的认知能力。感官歧视的行为库与参与者的感官阈值有关。