Neural and Behavioral Differences in Speech Perception for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders within an Audiovisual Context

Purpose: Reduced use of visible articulatory information on a speaker's face has been implicated as a possible contributor to language deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We employ an audiovisual (AV) phonemic restoration paradigm to measure behavioral performance (button press) and ev...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of speech, language, and hearing research language, and hearing research, 2023-07, Vol.66 (7), p.2390-2403
Hauptverfasser: Irwin, Julia, Harwood, Vanessa, Kleinman, Daniel, Baron, Alisa, Avery, Trey, Turcios, Jacqueline, Landi, Nicole
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Purpose: Reduced use of visible articulatory information on a speaker's face has been implicated as a possible contributor to language deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We employ an audiovisual (AV) phonemic restoration paradigm to measure behavioral performance (button press) and event-related potentials (ERPs) of visual speech perception in children with ASD and their neurotypical peers to assess potential neural substrates that contribute to group differences. Method: Two sets of speech stimuli, /ba/-"/a/" ("/a/" was created from the /ba/ token by a reducing the initial consonant) and /ba/-/pa/, were presented within an auditory oddball paradigm to children aged 6-13 years with ASD (n = 17) and typical development (TD; n = 33) within two conditions. The AV condition contained a fully visible speaking face; the pixelated (PX) condition included a face, but the mouth and jaw were PX, removing all articulatory information. When articulatory features were present for the /ba/-"/a/" contrast, it was expected that the influence of the visual articulators would facilitate a phonemic restoration effect in which "/a/" would be perceived as /ba/. ERPs were recorded during the experiment while children were required to press a button for the deviant sound for both sets of speech contrasts within both conditions. Results: Button press data revealed that TD children were more accurate in discriminating between /ba/-"/a/" and /ba/-/pa/ contrasts in the PX condition relative to the ASD group. ERPs in response to the /ba/-/pa/ contrast within both AV and PX conditions differed between children with ASD and TD children (earlier P300 responses for children with ASD). Conclusion: Children with ASD differ in the underlying neural mechanisms responsible for speech processing compared with TD peers within an AV context.
ISSN:1092-4388
1558-9102
DOI:10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00661