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. The investigators collected samples of cortisol, a stress hormone, from the children's saliva before and after playing on the playground with another child.
"The arousal level of the children with autism during play suggests that interaction with peers can be quite stressful," Corbett said. "In this study, we also found a relationship between brain activity during play, behavior and stress level."
All of the children underwent brain scans while playing a computer game in which they believed they were playing a real person half the time and a computer the other half...
Typical children showed vast differences based on play with human versus computer partners," Corbett said. "While we know that children with autism have difficulty with social play, the current study showed that the brain patterns of children with autism spectrum disorders activate similar brain regions regardless of whether they are playing with a child they met or playing with a computer partner."
Interesting that they can measure things like stress in these ways. I always responded to play with sadness and fear.
14 Feb 2015, 3:02 pm
