ABSTRACT
Early literature suggested that some children with autism remain more responsive to near-receptor stimulation than distal-eceptor stimulation. Autistic, retarded, and normal children were taught to press a lever in the presence of a complex stimulus composed of visual, auditory, and tactile components. According to the theory of deviant sensory hierarchy, one would predict responding by the children with autism would be controlled mainly by the tactile cue and less by the auditory or visual cue and that normal children's responding would show the opposite trend. Perhaps the phenomenon was restricted to discriminations in which the compound was composed of cross-modality stimuli. Singlecue assessments indicated that, in general, the echolalic children learned the discrimination on the basis of intonation, and the mute children learned it on the basis of content. The fact that the overly restrictive stimulus control was frequently encountered in the autistic population is not surprising, since many of these children have low mental ages.
