Understanding by Preschool and School-Age Children of Emotions Expressed by the Spoken Voice

Exploring a method for evaluation of preschool and school children with autism spectrum disorder through checking their understanding of the speaker’s emotions with the help of prosody of the voice

“…In the previous study of elementary school children [5,6], the correct answer rate among the male TDC in the early years of elementary school was on the order of 50% for discrepant voice tasks (banter and sarcasm). In the present study, on the other hand, the correct answer rate among the TDC in the first year of elementary school class for discrepant voice tasks ([bluffing] and [fooling]) was on the order of 90% [10]. The voice task for [banter] used in the previous study was adopted as an approximately equivalent task to [fooling] in the present study, although the details of this tasks differed between previous and present studies (the phrase ''No" often used during conversation among children to express the emotion of fooling was used in the present study, while in the previous study, the phrase, ''You're wrong" often used by adults to address children for the purpose of banter, was used).…”

“…Subsequently, we conducted a study designed to examine the ability of children of understanding the speaker's emotions expressed through prosody of the voice, regardless of the literal meanings of the spoken phrases, using phrases not requiring high linguistic capabilities (i.e., phrases used during routine communication among children). To put it concretely, we conducted the study in typically developing children (TDC) using test phrases containing emotional expressions such as ''I don't like it" [10]. The study demonstrated that the minimum age at which the children acquired the ability to understand the speaker's emotions on the basis of the prosody of the voice differed depending on a combina-tion of two factors: (1) whether the literal meanings of the phrases were positive or negative, and (2) whether the emotion expressed by the voice was positive or negative.…”