Yu Luodi, Ban Lizhi, Yi Aiwen, Xin Jing, Li Suping, Wang Suiping, Mottron Laurent
Center for Autism Research, School of Education, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China.
Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
Autism Res. 2025 Feb;18(2):402-414. doi: 10.1002/aur.3301. Epub 2024 Dec 27.
Child-directed speech (CDS), which amplifies acoustic and social features of speech during interactions with young children, promotes typical phonetic and language development. In autism, both behavioral and brain data indicate reduced sensitivity to human speech, which predicts absent, decreased, or atypical benefits of exaggerated speech signals such as CDS. This study investigates the impact of exaggerated fundamental frequency (F0) and voice-onset time on the neural processing of speech sounds in 22 Chinese-speaking autistic children aged 2-7 years old with a history of speech delays, compared with 25 typically developing (TD) peers. Electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected during passive listening to exaggerated and non-exaggerated syllables. A time-resolved multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) was used to evaluate the potential effects of acoustic exaggeration on syllable discrimination in terms of neural decoding accuracy. For non-exaggerated syllables, neither the autism nor the TD group achieved above-chance decoding accuracy. In contrast, for exaggerated syllables, both groups achieved above-chance decoding, indicating significant syllable discrimination, with no difference in accuracy between the autism and TD groups. However, the temporal generalization patterns in the MVPA results revealed distinct neural mechanisms supporting syllable discrimination between the groups. Although the TD group demonstrated a left-hemisphere advantage for decoding and generalization, the autism group displayed similar decoding patterns between hemispheres. These findings highlight the potential of selective acoustic exaggeration to support speech learning in autistic children, underscoring the importance of tailored, sensory-based interventions.
儿童指向性言语（CDS）在与幼儿互动时会放大言语的声学和社会特征，有助于典型的语音和语言发展。在自闭症中，行为和大脑数据均表明对人类言语的敏感性降低，这预示着诸如CDS这种夸张言语信号的益处缺失、减少或不典型。本研究调查了夸张基频（F0）和语音起始时间对22名2至7岁有言语延迟史的华语自闭症儿童言语声音神经处理的影响，并与25名发育正常（TD）的同龄人进行比较。在被动聆听夸张和非夸张音节时收集脑电图（EEG）数据。使用时间分辨多变量模式分析（MVPA），根据神经解码准确性评估声学夸张对音节辨别能力的潜在影响。对于非夸张音节，自闭症组和TD组的解码准确性均未超过随机水平。相比之下，对于夸张音节，两组的解码准确性均超过随机水平，表明有显著的音节辨别能力，自闭症组和TD组在准确性上没有差异。然而，MVPA结果中的时间泛化模式揭示了两组之间支持音节辨别的不同神经机制。虽然TD组在解码和泛化方面表现出左半球优势，但自闭症组在两个半球之间表现出相似的解码模式。这些发现凸显了选择性声学夸张在支持自闭症儿童言语学习方面的潜力，强调了量身定制的基于感官的干预措施的重要性。
