Kargas Niko, López Beatriz, Morris Paul, Reddy Vasudevi
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2016 Apr 1;59(2):206-15. doi: 10.1044/2015_JSLHR-S-14-0237.
To date, the literature on perception of affective, pragmatic, and grammatical prosody abilities in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has been sparse and contradictory. It is interesting to note that the primary perception of syllable stress within the word structure, which is crucial for all prosody functions, remains relatively unexplored in ASD. Thus, in the current study, we explored syllable stress perception sensitivity and its relationship to speech production abnormalities and communicative ability in adults with ASD.
A same-different syllable stress perception task using pairs of identical 4-syllable words was delivered to 42 adults with/without high-functioning ASD, matched for age, to investigate primary speech perception ability in ASD. Speech production and communicative ability in ASD was measured using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (Lord et al., 2000).
As predicted, the results showed that adults with ASD were less sensitive in making judgments about syllable stress relative to controls. Also, partial correlations revealed a key association of speech production abnormalities with stress perception sensitivity, rather than communicative ability.
Our findings provide empirical evidence for deficits on primary syllable stress perception in ASD and its role on sociocommunicative difficulties. This information could facilitate the development of effective interventions for speech and language therapy and social communication.
迄今为止，关于自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者情感、语用和语法韵律能力感知的文献稀少且相互矛盾。值得注意的是，对于词结构中音节重音的主要感知，这对所有韵律功能都至关重要，但在ASD中仍相对未被探索。因此，在本研究中，我们探究了成年ASD患者的音节重音感知敏感性及其与言语产生异常和沟通能力的关系。
使用由相同的4音节词对组成的异同音节重音感知任务，对42名年龄匹配的有/无高功能ASD的成年人进行测试，以研究ASD患者的主要言语感知能力。使用《自闭症诊断观察量表》（Lord等人，2000年）测量ASD患者的言语产生和沟通能力。
正如预期的那样，结果表明，与对照组相比，成年ASD患者在判断音节重音方面的敏感性较低。此外，偏相关分析显示，言语产生异常与重音感知敏感性之间存在关键关联，而非与沟通能力有关。
我们的研究结果为ASD患者在主要音节重音感知方面的缺陷及其在社会沟通困难中的作用提供了实证依据。这些信息有助于开发有效的言语和语言治疗以及社会沟通干预措施。
