Measurement of Olfaction in Children with Autism by Olfactory Display Using Pulse Ejection

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is considered as one of the developmental difficulties caused by dysfunctions of the brain. There are a variety of symptoms with ASD, but these can be significantly improved by appropriate treatment and education. Thus, it is important to find the patients with ASD while young. Recently, research on the olfactory senses of patients with ASD is being done. It is reported that there are differences of odor detection and identification abilities between people with ASD and controls. Our aim was to develop the screening examination by olfaction, hence we developed an application to assess the odor detection and identification abilities in children by using olfactory display which uses pulse ejection. We also investigated the olfactory abilities of the children with ASD using the application. However, we found some problems with application, and we made improvements. After the improvements, we assess the olfactory abilities of the typically developing children. As a result, we saw similar tendency as in the related works on olfactory abilities in children with ASD by the olfactory display.