Generalization of content and emotional prosody across speakers varying in gender in youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research in Developmental Disabilities
Patricia J BrooksBertram O Ploog

Abstract

We employed a discrimination-choice procedure, embedded in a custom-made videogame, to evaluate whether youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), including nonverbal individuals, distinguish sentences on the basis of emotional tone-of-voice and generalize linguistic information across speaker gender. Thirteen youth with ASD (7-21 years) and 13 age-matched typical controls heard pairs of pre-recorded sentences varying in lexical content and prosody (e.g., enthusiastic "Dave rode a bike'' vs. grouchy "Mark held a key''). After training to select a target sentence, participants heard test probes comprising re-combinations of the content and prosodic features of the sentences. Interspersed generalization trials used a voice opposite in gender to the voice used in training. Youth with ASD were less accurate than controls in discriminating sentences based on emotional tone-of-voice. Nonverbal and verbal youth did not differ in this regard. The ASD group showed only slight decrements in generalizing to the opposite-gender voice. The finding of intact generalization of linguistic information across male/female speakers contrasts with the widely held view that autism is characterized by deficits in generalization. This suggests the nee...Continue Reading

Citations

May 21, 2021·Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology : JARO·Collins Opoku-BaahMark T Wallace

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Autism spectrum disorder is associated with challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, and often accompanied by sensory sensitivities and medical issues. Here is the latest research on autism.

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