Clarifying the Associations Between Language and Social Development in Autism: A Study of Non-native Phoneme Recognition

Constantino, John N.; Dan, Yang; Gray, Teddi; Gross, Maggie M.; Abbacchi, Anna M.; Smith, Sarah C.; Kohn, Catherine E.; Kuhl, Patricia K.

doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0269-9

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…People with ASD also find faces less salient than do people without ASD [54]–[56], so infants who go on to develop ASD might have impoverished visual input during the process of learning native phoneme categories. The only experimental evidence of phoneme categorization in ASD comes from a study that examined foreign speech contrasts [57]. Although this study found that there were no group differences in performance, it cannot address the issue of specialization because it did not compare perception of foreign and native speech sound categories.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Auditory Processing in High-Functioning Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

et al. 2012

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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder including abnormalities in perceptual processing. We measure perception in a battery of tests across speech (filtering, phoneme categorization, multisensory integration) and music (pitch memory, meter categorization, harmonic priming). We found that compared to controls, the ASD group showed poorer filtering, less audio-visual integration, less specialization for native phonemic and metrical categories, and a higher instance of absolute pitch. No group differences were found in harmonic priming. Our results are discussed in a developmental framework where culture-specific knowledge acquired early compared to late in development is most impaired, perhaps because of early-accelerated brain growth in ASD. These results suggest that early auditory remediation is needed for good communication and social functioning.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Auditory Processing in High-Functioning Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

et al. 2012

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“…Younger infants show increased response over an initial positive ERP component (P150) and a secondary negative component (N250) to the deviant relative to the standard regardless of whether the stimuli are used contrastively in their native language; by 10-13 months, this increase is restricted to deviant stimuli that are phonemically distinct from the standard in their native language, suggesting a perceptual loss of the irrelevant contrasts (Rivera-Gaxiola, et al, 2005). There is mixed evidence for whether older children with ASD show the appropriate ‘lack’ of ability to distinguish non-native phonemic contrasts (Constantino, et al, 2007; but see DePape, Hall, Tillmann, & Trainor, 2012), and the developmental trajectory of perceptual narrowing in infants at-risk for ASD remains unknown. Importantly, in typical development this perceptual narrowing depends on exposure to and social engagement with a live speaker (Kuhl, 2007; Kuhl, Tsao, & Liu, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atypical lateralization of ERP response to native and non-native speech in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

Seery

Vogel‐Farley

Tager–Flusberg

et al. 2013

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

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Language impairment is common in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and is often accompanied by atypical neural lateralization. However, it is unclear when in development language impairment or atypical lateralization first emerges. To address these questions, we recorded event-related-potentials (ERPs) to native and non-native speech contrasts longitudinally in infants at risk for ASD (HRA) over the first year of life to determine whether atypical lateralization is present as an endophenotype early in development and whether these infants show delay in a very basic precursor of language acquisition: phonemic perceptual narrowing. ERP response for the HRA group to a non-native speech contrast revealed a trajectory of perceptual narrowing similar to a group of low-risk controls (LRC), suggesting that phonemic perceptual narrowing does not appear to be delayed in these high-risk infants. In contrast there were significant group differences in the development of lateralized ERP response to speech: between 6 and 12 months the LRC group displayed a lateralized response to the speech sounds, while the HRA group failed to display this pattern. We suggest the possibility that atypical lateralization to speech may be an ASD endophenotype over the first year of life.

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“…Some studies have reported group differences in pitch perception between individuals with an ASD diagnosis with vs. without a history of early‐language delay (Bonnel et al., ). However, most studies find no association between pitch perception and current language skills in ASD at age of 10 (Heaton et al., ), and no special sensitivity to non‐native phonological contrasts in ASD at 12 (Constantino et al., ). Perhaps developmental processes such as joint attention and social engagement intervene, such that pitch perception shapes early ‐language development, but has less measurable influence on later language skills.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More Is Less: Pitch Discrimination and Language Delays in Children with Optimal Outcomes from Autism

Eigsti

Fein

2013

Autism Research

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Lay Abstract Parents, clinicians, teachers, and researchers seem to agree that individuals with autism spectrum disorders often have sharper hearing, including abilities like perfect pitch, better memory for specific sounds, better abilities to tell one sound apart from even a very similar sound, and so on. We asked whether this sharper hearing ability is related to some of the difficulties in autism, including later development of language: Is better hearing part of having ASD? One important part of this study is that it includes a group of people from all over the U.S. and Canada who had ASD when they were younger (diagnosed before age five years), but who do not have any symptoms now that they are teenagers. We call this an “optimal outcome”. They do not have any symptoms, they do not need any special education services, and their IQ scores are in the normal or high-normal range. We measured the ability to hear the difference between two tones, or pitches, in 26 teenagers with optimal outcomes, 29 teenagers with high-functioning autism, and 20 teenagers with typical development. The teenagers who have ASD were better at hearing pitch differences, suggesting that this special ability is part of ASD; the teenagers with optimal outcomes did not differ from the typically-developing group. Also, the teenagers with the best pitch abilities tended to be the latest to start talking when they were toddlers. The paper discusses what these results mean for communication in ASD, and for the process of learning language more generally. Scientific Abstract The autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders, diagnosed behaviorally but associated with differences in brain development. Individuals with ASD exhibit superior auditory perceptual skills, which may correlate with ASD symptomatology, particularly language skills. We describe findings from individuals diagnosed with ASD before age five, who now have no symptoms (e.g., having optimal outcomes). Unlike an ASD group, which shows heightened pitch discrimination, the Optimal Outcome group’s abilities do not differ from those of typically developing controls. Furthermore, pitch discrimination is associated with both current autism symptomatology and early language milestones. Findings illuminate processes associated with resolution of autism. We also discuss a specific mechanism by which heightened auditory discrimination leads to language delays in ASD.

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Clarifying the Associations Between Language and Social Development in Autism: A Study of Non-native Phoneme Recognition

Cited by 25 publications

References 20 publications

Auditory Processing in High-Functioning Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Auditory Processing in High-Functioning Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Atypical lateralization of ERP response to native and non-native speech in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder

More Is Less: Pitch Discrimination and Language Delays in Children with Optimal Outcomes from Autism

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