A “signature of autism” found in brain activity may eventually become a biomarker to improve classification of the disorder and aid in treatment and therapy planning. Unique brain wave patterns, spotted for the first time in autistic children, may help explain why they have so much trouble communicating. Using an imaging helmet that resembles a big salon hair dryer, called magnetoencephalography (MEG), researchers discovered what they believe are "signatures of autism" that show a delay in processing individual sounds.

In other words, the study shows that autistic children have unique brain waves than do children without autism. They believe these different brain waves can help in determining if a child has autism or not. The big hair salon hair dryer look-alike is able to detect autism in children who are as young as one year of age. Most autism isn’t detected until the earliest age of two so this would be a big step in getting the behavioral therapy necessary to help these children learn better ways of communicating.

The research was done with 64 children, thirty of which has autism, at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, ages 6 to 15, and the results were compared to those children without. All the children were instructed to wear headphones and listen to a series of beeps, vowels, and sentences. When the results were compared it was found that the autistic children responded one fiftieth of a second slower than those without autism.

According to Timothy Roberts of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, speaking on Monday at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, the finding "provides strong supporting evidence for the emerging theory that autism is a problem of connectivity in the brain". Since a single syllable in a multisyllable word might take less than one-quarter of a second to say, Roberts said 1/20th of a second extra delay in the response time of the brains of autistic children may hamper their ability to comprehend.