Given the wide age range (14 months to 18 years) of the subjects within the ASD- and C-groups and the well known age effects on EEG and spectral coherence data over this wide age range [65-67], analyses were restricted to the more limited age range of 2 to 12 years (ASD-group: n = 430; C-group: n = 554; total sample: n = 984, see Table 1). A high male (84%) to female (16%) ratio in the ASD-group reflects known male preponderance for this population [68]. A similar pattern in the C-group (male (88%), female 12%) reflects intentional bias as subject selection anticipated studies of autism and other studies from which the C-group was drawn (for example, dyslexia, learning disabilities, and behavior problems where males predominate) [69,70]. Male to female ratios were not significantly different between the ASD- and C-groups. The effect of age was removed from the 40 coherence variables generated on the 2- to 12-year-old total sample by simple regression using age-at-study as the independent variable and the 40 coherence factors as dependent variables (BMDP-6R). Factors remained statistically uncorrelated
