Institute for the Study of Child Development, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, 89 French Street, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901, USA.
Children's Health at Hackensack Meridian, Hackensack, NJ, 07601, USA.
Eur J Pediatr. 2023 May;182(5):2105-2117. doi: 10.1007/s00431-023-04871-y. Epub 2023 Feb 23.
The inability to perceive audio-visual speech as a unified event may contribute to social impairments and language deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, we examined and compared two groups of infants on their sensitivity to audio-visual asynchrony for a social (speaking face) and non-social event (bouncing ball) and assessed the relations between multisensory integration and language production. Infants at elevated likelihood of developing ASD were less sensitive to audio-visual synchrony for the social event than infants without elevated likelihood. Among infants without elevated likelihood, greater sensitivity to audio-visual synchrony for the social event was associated with a larger productive vocabulary.
Findings suggest that early deficits in multisensory integration may impair language development among infants with elevated likelihood of developing ASD.
•Perceptual integration of auditory and visual cues within speech is important for language development. •Prior work suggests that children with ASD are less sensitive to the temporal synchrony within audio-visual speech.
•In this study, infants at elevated likelihood of developing ASD showed a larger temporal binding window for adynamic social event (Speaking Face) than TD infants, suggesting less efficient multisensory integration.
无法将视听言语视为统一事件，可能导致自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童的社交障碍和语言缺陷。在这项研究中，我们检查并比较了两组婴儿对社会事件（说话的脸）和非社会事件（弹球）的视听失谐的敏感性，并评估了多感官整合与语言产生之间的关系。具有较高 ASD 发病可能性的婴儿对社会事件的视听同步性的敏感性低于没有较高发病可能性的婴儿。在没有较高发病可能性的婴儿中，对社会事件的视听同步性的敏感性越大，生产性词汇量越大。
研究结果表明，早期多感官整合缺陷可能会损害具有较高 ASD 发病可能性的婴儿的语言发展。
•听觉和视觉线索在言语内的感知整合对于语言发展很重要。•先前的工作表明，ASD 儿童对视听言语内的时间同步性的敏感性较低。
•在这项研究中，具有较高 ASD 发病可能性的婴儿对动态社会事件（说话的脸）的时间绑定窗口大于 TD 婴儿，这表明多感官整合效率较低。
