Nakai Yasushi, Takashima Ryoichi, Takiguchi Tetsuya, Takada Satoshi
Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan; Department of Nursing Childcare, Kawasaki College of Allied Health Professions, Kurashiki, Japan.
Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.
Brain Dev. 2014 Jun;36(6):516-22. doi: 10.1016/j.braindev.2013.07.006. Epub 2013 Aug 20.
The prosody of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has several abnormal features. We assessed the speech tone of children with ASD and of children with typical development (TD) by using a new quantitative acoustic analysis.
Our study participants consisted of 63 children (26 with ASD and 37 with TD). The participants were divided into 4 groups based on their developmental features and age. We assessed the variety of the fundamental frequency (F0) pattern quantitatively, using pitch coefficient of variation (CV), considering the different F0 mean for each word.
(1) No significant difference was observed between the ASD and TD group at pre-school age. However, the TD group exhibited significantly greater pitch CV than the ASD group at school age. (2) In pitch CV, range and standard deviation of the whole speech of each participant, no significant differences were observed between the type of participants and age. (3) No significant correlation was found between the pitch CV of each word and the Japanese Autism Screening Questionnaire total score, or between the pitch CV of each word and the intelligence quotient levels in the ASD group. A significant correlation was observed between the pitch CV of each word and social reciprocal interaction score.
We assessed the speech tone of children with ASD by using a new quantitative method. Monotonous speech in school-aged children with ASD was detected. The extent of monotonous speech was related to the extent of social reciprocal interaction in children with ASD.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的韵律有若干异常特征。我们采用一种新的定量声学分析方法评估了ASD儿童和发育正常（TD）儿童的语调。
我们的研究参与者包括63名儿童（26名ASD儿童和37名TD儿童）。参与者根据其发育特征和年龄分为4组。我们使用音高变异系数（CV）定量评估了基频（F0）模式的多样性，同时考虑了每个单词不同的F0均值。
（1）学龄前ASD组和TD组之间未观察到显著差异。然而，学龄期TD组的音高CV显著高于ASD组。（2）在每个参与者整个语音的音高CV、范围和标准差方面，参与者类型和年龄之间未观察到显著差异。（3）在ASD组中，每个单词的音高CV与日本自闭症筛查问卷总分之间，以及每个单词的音高CV与智商水平之间均未发现显著相关性。每个单词的音高CV与社交互动得分之间观察到显著相关性。
我们采用一种新的定量方法评估了ASD儿童的语调。检测到学龄期ASD儿童的语音单调。语音单调的程度与ASD儿童的社交互动程度相关。
