Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, 100 Lefrak Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
J Neurodev Disord. 2021 Jan 5;13(1):4. doi: 10.1186/s11689-020-09348-9.
Adults and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders show greater difficulties comprehending speech in the presence of noise. Moreover, while neurotypical adults use visual cues on the mouth to help them understand speech in background noise, differences in attention to human faces in autism may affect use of these visual cues. No work has yet examined these skills in toddlers with ASD, despite the fact that they are frequently faced with noisy, multitalker environments.
Children aged 2-5 years, both with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD), saw pairs of images in a preferential looking study and were instructed to look at one of the two objects. Sentences were presented in the presence of quiet or another background talker (noise). On half of the trials, the face of the target person speaking was presented, while half had no face present. Growth-curve modeling was used to examine the time course of children's looking to the appropriate vs. opposite image.
Noise impaired performance for both children with ASD and their age- and language-matched peers. When there was no face present on the screen, the effect of noise was generally similar across groups with and without ASD. But when the face was present, the noise had a more detrimental effect on children with ASD than their language-matched peers, suggesting neurotypical children were better able to use visual cues on the speaker's face to aid performance. Moreover, those children with ASD who attended more to the speaker's face showed better listening performance in the presence of noise.
Young children both with and without ASD show poorer performance comprehending speech in the presence of another talker than in quiet. However, results suggest that neurotypical children may be better able to make use of face cues to partially counteract the effects of noise. Children with ASD varied in their use of face cues, but those children who spent more time attending to the face of the target speaker appeared less disadvantaged by the presence of background noise, indicating a potential path for future interventions.
自闭症谱系障碍的成年人和青少年在噪声环境中理解言语时会遇到更大的困难。此外，尽管神经典型成年人会利用嘴部的视觉线索来帮助他们在背景噪声中理解言语，但自闭症患者对面部的注意力差异可能会影响他们对这些视觉线索的使用。尽管自闭症儿童经常面临嘈杂、多说话者的环境，但目前尚无研究检查他们在这方面的技能。
2-5 岁的儿童，无论是否患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD)，都在偏好注视研究中观看一对图像，并被指示注视两个物体中的一个。在安静或另一个背景说话者（噪声）存在的情况下呈现句子。在一半的试验中，呈现说话者的面部，而另一半则没有面部。使用增长曲线模型来检查儿童注视正确与错误图像的时间过程。
噪声对自闭症儿童及其年龄和语言匹配的同龄人的表现都有影响。当屏幕上没有面部时，自闭症和非自闭症组的噪声影响大致相似。但是，当有面部时，噪声对自闭症儿童的影响比对其语言匹配的同龄人更不利，这表明神经典型儿童能够更好地利用说话者面部的视觉线索来提高表现。此外，那些更关注说话者面部的自闭症儿童在噪声环境中听力表现更好。
患有和不患有自闭症的幼儿在有另一个说话者存在的情况下理解言语的表现都比在安静环境中差。然而，结果表明，神经典型儿童可能能够更好地利用面部线索来部分抵消噪声的影响。自闭症儿童在使用面部线索方面存在差异，但那些更关注目标说话者面部的儿童受到背景噪声的不利影响较小，这表明未来干预可能有一个潜在的途径。
