Speech Rate Entrainment in Children and Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Wynn, Camille J.; Borrie, Stephanie A.; Sellers, Tyra P.

doi:10.1044/2018_ajslp-17-0134

Cited by 29 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…These inconclusive findings across studies are not limited to young children. Similar discrepancies have been found in studies involving school-aged children and adolescents (Oviatt, Darves, & Coulston, 2004;Wynn, Borrie, & Sellers, 2018).…”

supporting

confidence: 82%

Going With the Flow: An Examination of Entrainment in Typically Developing Children

Wynn

Borrie

Pope

2019

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose Conversational entrainment is the tendency for individuals to modify their behavior to more closely converge with the behavior of their communication partner and is an important aspect of successful interaction. Evidence of entrainment in adults is robust, yet research regarding its development in children is sparse. Here, we investigate the emergence of entrainment skills in typically developing children. Method Data were collected from a total of 50 typically developing children between the ages of 5 and 14 years. Children participated in a quasiconversational paradigm with a virtual interlocutor. Speech rate of the interlocutor was digitally manipulated to produce fast and slow speech rate conditions. Results Data from the fast and slow conditions were compared using linear mixed models. Results indicated that children, regardless of age, did not alter their speech to match the rate of the virtual interlocutor. Conclusions Findings suggest that entrainment in children may not be as robust as entrainment in adults and therefore not adequately captured with the current experimental paradigm. Modifications to the current paradigm will help identify a methodology sufficiently sensitive to capture the speech alignment phenomenon in children and provide much needed information regarding the typical stages of entrainment development.

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confidence: 82%

Going With the Flow: An Examination of Entrainment in Typically Developing Children

Wynn

Borrie

Pope

2019

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…Given the positive correlation between f0 entrainment and the success of conversations as well as personal and interpersonal attributes of the conversation partners ( Lubold et al, 2016 ; Michalsky and Schoormann, 2017 ; Michalsky et al, 2018 ; Niebuhr and Michalsky, 2019 ), the finding that children and teens with ASD show less mean f0 entrainment compared to their neurotypical peers is significant. Especially, seen that earlier studies on lexical and speech rate entrainment did not find differences between participants with and without ASD ( Nadig et al, 2015 ; Branigan et al, 2016 ; Hopkins et al, 2017 ; Wynn et al, 2018 ). Considering that deficits in social communication in those with ASD are considered a core-deficit in this population, measures of f0 entrainment behavior have the potential to serve as a biomarker for assessing both the presence and the severity of the social communication deficit in this population, and possibly in others with social communication deficits, directly.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…However, Nadig et al (2015) report that while the participants with ASD were just as efficient as the controls, they were slightly slower and were less likely to incorporate the conversation partners’ contributions into their descriptions. Looking at prosodic entrainment behavior, Wynn et al (2018) investigated speaking rate in individuals with ASD—both children and adults—and found that only neurotypical adults exhibited entrainment in speech rate in their study. Wynn et al’s (2018) study was an important first step in the investigation of prosodic entrainment behaviors in those with ASD.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Looking at prosodic entrainment behavior, Wynn et al (2018) investigated speaking rate in individuals with ASD—both children and adults—and found that only neurotypical adults exhibited entrainment in speech rate in their study. Wynn et al’s (2018) study was an important first step in the investigation of prosodic entrainment behaviors in those with ASD. The study examined speech rate entrainment using a quasi-conversational design where participants watched a pre-recorded female talker on a computer screen who asked them to describe what they saw in a picture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prosodic Entrainment in Conversations of Verbal Children and Teens on the Autism Spectrum

2020

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Unusual speech prosody has long been recognized as a characteristic feature of the speech of individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, research to determine the exact nature of this difference in speech prosody is still ongoing. Many individuals with verbal autism perform well on tasks testing speech prosody. Nonetheless, their expressive prosody is judged to be unusual by others. We propose that one aspect of this perceived difference in speech prosody in individuals with ASD may be due to a deficit in the ability to entrain—or become more similar—to their conversation partners in prosodic features over the course of a conversation. In order to investigate this hypothesis, 24 children and teens between the ages of 9 and 15 years participated in our study. Twelve of the participants had previously been diagnosed with ASD and the other 12 participants were matched to the ASD participants in age, gender, and non-verbal IQ scores. All participants completed a goal-directed conversation task, which was subsequently analyzed acoustically. Our results suggest (1) that youth diagnosed with ASD entrain less to their conversation partners compared to their neurotypical peers—in fact, children and teens diagnosed with ASD tend to dis-entrain from their conversation partners while their neurotypical peers tend to converge to their conversation partners’ prosodic features. (2) Although age interacts differently with prosodic entrainment in youth with and without ASD, this difference is attributable to the entrainment behavior of the conversation partners rather than to those with ASD. (3) Better language skill is negatively correlated with prosodic entrainment for both youth with and without ASD. The observed differences in prosodic entrainment in children and teens with ASD may not only contribute to the perceived unusual prosody in youth with ASD but are also likely to be indicative of their difficulties in social communication, which constitutes a core challenge for individuals with ASD.

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“…As research in this area continues to grow, the adoption of a consistent system for organizing entrainment across research teams and studies would ensure greater cohesion and integration of knowledge. This is particularly true for speech-language pathology, a field where the need to rigorously measure and understand conversational phenomena is becoming increasingly recognized (see Barnes and Bloch, 2019) and research in conversational entrainment is starting to expand (e.g., Borrie et al, 2020a;Wynn et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Classifying Conversational Entrainment of Speech Behavior: An Expanded Framework and Review

Wynn¹,

Borrie²

2020

Preprint

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Conversational entrainment, also known as alignment, accommodation, convergence, and coordination is broadly defined as similarity of communicative behavior between interlocutors. Within current literature, specific terminology, definitions, and measurement approaches are wide ranging and highly variable. As new ways of measuring and quantifying entrainment are developed and research in this area continues to expand to fields such as speech-language pathology, consistent terminology and a means of organizing entrainment research is critical, affording cohesion and assimilation of knowledge. While systems for categorizing entrainment do exist, these efforts are not entirely comprehensive in that specific measurement approaches often used within entrainment literature cannot be categorized under existing frameworks. The purpose of this review article is twofold: First, we propose a modified version of the framework presented by Levitan and colleagues (2011; 2014), which allows for the categorization of all measures of acoustic-prosodic entrainment and includes refinements, additions, and explanations aimed at improving its clarity and accessibility. Second, we present an extensive literature review, demonstrating how current literature fits into the given framework. We begin by introducing, describing, and illustrating the updated classification framework, consisting of eight entrainment types categorized by three dichotomous classification factors. To assist with explanations of each entrainment subtype, we draw upon rich literature of acoustic-prosodic behaviors in embodied face-to-face conversations and provide clear examples of each classification type. We conclude with a discussion of how the proposed entrainment framework presented herein can be used to guide unified research efforts in speech-language pathology.

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Speech Rate Entrainment in Children and Adults With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Cited by 29 publications

References 53 publications

Going With the Flow: An Examination of Entrainment in Typically Developing Children

Going With the Flow: An Examination of Entrainment in Typically Developing Children

Prosodic Entrainment in Conversations of Verbal Children and Teens on the Autism Spectrum

Classifying Conversational Entrainment of Speech Behavior: An Expanded Framework and Review

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