Abstract

Persons with autism spectrum disorder(ASD) show high rates of comorbidity with intellectual disability(ID). However, previous EEG studies simply compared ASD group to typical developing group without considering comorbidity. The purpose of this study was to compare EEG power of persons with ID to that of persons with ASD comorbid with ID. For this purpose, EEG was measured using a portable 2 channel device, Braino, at rest and during a specific task. Absolute and relative power of various frequency bands were calculated. The results showed that there were no group differences in all frequency bands at rest and in all frequency bands except absolute gamma power during a task. In terms of absolute gamma power, persons with ASD comorbid with ID showed a significantly higher power than that of persons with ID. Theses results suggested that there were similarities in EEG power of ASD and ID, therefore it is necessary to control for ID when conducting EEG power in persons with ASD.