Audio–vocal system regulation in children with autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

Do children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) respond similarly to perturbations in auditory feedback as typically developing (TD) children? Presentation of pitch-shifted voice auditory feedback to vocalizing participants reveals a close coupling between the processing of auditory feedback and vocal motor control. This paradigm was used to test the hypothesis that abnormalities in the audio-vocal system would negatively impact ASD compensatory responses to perturbed auditory feedback. Voice fundamental frequency (F 0 ) was measured while children produced an /a/ sound into a microphone. The voice signal was fed back to the subjects in real time through headphones. During production, the feedback was pitch shifted (-100 cents, 200 ms) at random intervals for 80 trials. Averaged voice F 0 responses to pitch-shifted stimuli were calculated and correlated with both mental and language abilities as tested via standardized tests. A subset of children with ASD produced larger responses to perturbed auditory feedback than TD children, while the other children with ASD produced significantly lower response magnitudes. Furthermore, robust relationships between language ability, response magnitude and time of peak magnitude were identified. Because auditory feedback helps to stabilize voice F 0 (a major acoustic cue of prosody) and individuals with ASD have problems with prosody, this study identified potential mechanisms of dysfunction in the audio-vocal system for voice pitch regulation in some children with ASD. Objectively quantifying this deficit may inform both the assessment of a subgroup of ASD children with prosody deficits, as well as remediation strategies that incorporate pitch training.

Auditory Brain Stem Response to Complex Sounds: A Tutorial

“…By far the two most extensively studied are the consonant-vowel (CV) constructions /dɑ/ (Cunningham et al 2001; Plyler and Ananthanarayan 2001; King et al 2002; Russo et al 2004; Wible et al 2004; Kraus and Nicol 2005; Russo et al 2005; Wible et al 2005; Musacchia et al 2007; Johnson et al 2008a; Banai et al 2009; Burns et al 2009; Parbery-Clark et al in press) and various Mandarin syllables with differing pitch contours (i.e., lexical tones) (Krishnan et al 2004; Krishnan et al 2005; Xu et al 2006; Wong et al 2007; Song et al 2008; Krishnan and Gandour 2009; Krishnan et al 2009b). The auditory brainstem response to /dɑ/ has been investigated under different recording conditions: monaural (Cunningham et al 2001; Banai et al 2009) and binaural (Musacchia et al 2008; Parbery-Clark et al in press) stimulation; left ear and right ear stimulation (Hornickel et al 2009a); audiovisual and auditory-only stimulation (Musacchia et al 2006; Musacchia et al 2007); and in the presence of background noise (Cunningham et al 2001; Russo et al 2004; Russo et al 2005; Russo et al 2008a; Russo et al 2008b; Parbery-Clark et al in press). Moreover, in addition to manipulating stimulus parameters (e.g., duration of the stimulus, duration of the formant transition, and formant frequency settings), cABRs to /dɑ/ has been evaluated before and after auditory training (Russo et al 2008b; Song et al 2008), across the lifespan (Johnson et al 2008b; Burns et al 2009), and in a number of different populations including musicians (Musacchia et al 2007; Musacchia et al 2008; Kraus et al 2009; Parbery-Clark et al in press) and children with dyslexia, specific language impairment, and autism spectrum disorders (Cunningham et al 2001; Banai et al 2005; Banai and Kraus 2008; Banai et al 2009; Hornickel et al 2009b; Chandrasekaran et al 2009) reviewed in Banai and Kraus 2008).…”

Sex-related differences in vocal responses to pitch feedback perturbations during sustained vocalization

“…Although stimulus-or task-dependent modulation of vocal responses to perturbations in voice auditory feedback has been extensively investigated, little research has been focused on whether auditory feedback is used differently to control voice F 0 in different populations (Russo et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2010). In particular, there is no published report indicating whether male speakers differ from female speakers in their vocal responses to pitch feedback perturbations during sustained phonation.…”

LittleHelper: An augmented reality glass application to assist individuals with autism in job interview

“…The employer may feel offended if the interviewee keeps looking away while the employer is talking to him/her. In addition, the inappropriately stressed and monotonous speech of an individual with ASD may affect the expressivity and effectiveness of the conversation [3].…”