Categorical perception of Mandarin lexical tones in language-delayed autistic children

Abstract

Enhanced pitch perception has been identified in autistic individuals, but it remains understudied whether such enhancement can be observed in the lexical tone perception of language-delayed autistic children. This study examined the categorical perception of Mandarin lexical tones in 23 language-delayed autistic children and two groups of non-autistic children, with one matched on chronological age ( n = 23) and the other on developmental age in language ability ( n = 23). The participants were required to identify and discriminate lexical tones. A wider identification boundary width and a lower between-category discrimination accuracy were found in autistic children than their chronological-age-matched non-autistic peers, but the autistic group exhibited seemingly comparable performance to the group of developmental-age-matched non-autistic children. While both non-autistic groups displayed a typical categorical perception pattern with enhanced sensitivity to between-category tone pairs relative to within-category ones, such a categorical perception pattern was not observed in the autistic group. These findings suggest among language-delayed autistic children with a developmental age around 4, categorical perception is still developing. Finally, we found categorical perception performance correlated with language ability, indicating autistic children’s language disability might be predictive of their poor categorical perception of speech sounds. Lay abstract Some theories suggested that autistic people have better pitch perception skills than non-autistic people. However, in a context where pitch patterns are used to differentiate word meanings (i.e. lexical tones), autistic people may encounter difficulties, especially those with less language experience. We tested this by asking language-delayed autistic children to identify and discriminate two Mandarin lexical tones (/yi/ with Tone 1, meaning ‘clothes’; /yi/ with Tone 2, meaning ‘aunt’; /yi/: the standard romanization of Mandarin Chinese). On average, these autistic children were 7.35 years old, but their developmental age in language ability was 4.20, lagging behind 7-year-old non-autistic children in terms of language ability. Autistic children’s performance in identifying and discriminating lexical tones was compared with two groups of non-autistic children: one group was matched with the autistic group on age, and the other was matched based on language ability. Autistic children performed differently from the non-autistic children matched on age, while autistic and non-autistic children matched on language ability exhibited seemingly similar performance. However, both the non-autistic groups have developed the perceptual ability to process lexical tones as different categories, but this ability was still developing in autistic children. Finally, we found autistic children who performed worse in identifying lexical tones had poorer language ability. The results suggest that language disability might have adverse influence on the development of skills of speech sound processing.

An experimental study of monotone acoustics in Huazang Temple Dialect of Tianzhu

“…On the one hand, the voiced consonant vibrates from the vocal cord at the beginning of pronunciation, which will affect the fundamental frequency value, thus affecting the judgment of tone; On the other hand, some scholars pointed out that the tone coverage is mainly in the vowel part. There are obvious bends at the front of the syllable tone curve beginning with semi-vowel and voiced consonant, 1 and the true tone part is behind this bend. Based on the above word selection criteria, three groups of words are finally selected in three tone categories: flat tone, upper tone, and lower tone.…”

Categorical perception and language evolution: a comparative and neurological perspective

“…In the autism spectrum disorder (ASD), problems in the connections between basal ganglia, cerebral cortex and the cerebellum may give rise to problems in various motor and cognitive processes (Subramanian et al, 2017 ). It has been assumed that language impairment in autistic children could serve as a good indicator of their inability to categorically perceive speaking sounds (Rong et al, 2022 ). Furthermore, language proficiency in Mandarin-speaking ASD was positively associated with a greater degree of CP of lexical tones (Chen and Peng, 2021 ).…”

The form and function processing of lexical tone and intonation in tone-language-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

“…To date, only a handful of studies have investigated pitch processing in speakers of tone languages with ASD from behavioural and electrophysiological perspectives (Chen & Peng, 2021;Cheng et al, 2017;Jiang et al, 2015;Lau et al, 2020;Rong et al, 2022;X. Wang et al, 2017;Yu et al, 2015;J.…”