Clarifying the Associations Between Language and Social Development in Autism: a Study of Non-native Phoneme Recognition

Overview

Journal J Autism Dev Disord

Publisher Springer

Date 2006 Nov 3

PMID 17080273

Citations 9

Authors

John N Constantino

Dan Yang

Teddi L Gray

Maggie M Gross

Anna M Abbacchi

Sarah C Smith

Catherine E Kohn

Patricia K Kuhl

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by correlated deficiencies in social and language development. This study explored a fundamental aspect of auditory information processing (AIP) that is dependent on social experience and critical to early language development: the ability to compartmentalize close-sounding speech sounds into singular phonemes. We examined this ability by assessing whether close-sounding non-native language phonemes were more likely to be perceived as disparate sounds by school-aged children with high-functioning ASD (n = 27), than by unaffected control subjects (n = 35). No significant group differences were observed. Although earlier in autistic development there may exist qualitative deficits in this specific aspect of AIP, they are not an enduring characteristic of verbal school-aged children with ASD.

Citing Articles

Enhanced sensitivity to pitch perception and its possible relation to language acquisition in autism.

Hisaizumi M, Tantam D Autism Dev Lang Impair. 2024; 9:23969415241248618.

PMID: 38817731 PMC: 11138189. DOI: 10.1177/23969415241248618.

Different associations between intelligence and social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorders.

Hirosawa T, Kontani K, Fukai M, Kameya M, Soma D, Hino S PLoS One. 2020; 15(8):e0235380.

PMID: 32822358 PMC: 7444496. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235380.

Specificity of Phonological Representations for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Pomper R, Weismer S, Saffran J, Edwards J J Autism Dev Disord. 2019; 49(8):3351-3363.

PMID: 31098924 PMC: 7045177. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-019-04054-5.

Fast response to human voices in autism.

Lin I, Agus T, Suied C, Pressnitzer D, Yamada T, Komine Y Sci Rep. 2016; 6:26336.

PMID: 27193919 PMC: 4872056. DOI: 10.1038/srep26336.

The integrity of lexical acquisition mechanisms in autism spectrum disorders: A research review.

Arunachalam S, Luyster R Autism Res. 2015; 9(8):810-28.

PMID: 26688218 PMC: 4916034. DOI: 10.1002/aur.1590.

References

Constantino J, Todd R . Autistic traits in the general population: a twin study. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2003; 60(5):524-30. DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.60.5.524. View

Constantino J, Gruber C, Davis S, Hayes S, Passanante N, Przybeck T . The factor structure of autistic traits. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2004; 45(4):719-26. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00266.x. View

Senechal M, Ouellette G, Young L . Testing the concurrent and predictive relations among articulation accuracy, speech perception, and phoneme awareness. J Exp Child Psychol. 2004; 89(3):242-69. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2004.07.005. View

Iverson P, Kuhl P . Influences of phonetic identification and category goodness on American listeners' perception of /r/ and /l/. J Acoust Soc Am. 1996; 99(2):1130-40. DOI: 10.1121/1.415234. View

Kemner C, Verbaten M, Cuperus J, Camfferman G, van Engeland H . Auditory event-related brain potentials in autistic children and three different control groups. Biol Psychiatry. 1995; 38(3):150-65. DOI: 10.1016/0006-3223(94)00247-Z. View

Kuhl P, Tsao F, Liu H . Foreign-language experience in infancy: effects of short-term exposure and social interaction on phonetic learning. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003; 100(15):9096-101. PMC: 166444. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1532872100. View

Lopez B, Leekam S . Do children with autism fail to process information in context?. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2003; 44(2):285-300. DOI: 10.1111/1469-7610.00121. View

Just M, Cherkassky V, Keller T, Minshew N . Cortical activation and synchronization during sentence comprehension in high-functioning autism: evidence of underconnectivity. Brain. 2004; 127(Pt 8):1811-21. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awh199. View

Spiker D, Lotspeich L, DiMiceli S, Myers R, Risch N . Behavioral phenotypic variation in autism multiplex families: evidence for a continuous severity gradient. Am J Med Genet. 2002; 114(2):129-36. DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.10188. View

10.

Kuhl P, Coffey-Corina S, Padden D, Dawson G . Links between social and linguistic processing of speech in preschool children with autism: behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Dev Sci. 2005; 8(1):F1-F12. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00384.x. View

11.

Constantino J, Davis S, Todd R, Schindler M, Gross M, Brophy S . Validation of a brief quantitative measure of autistic traits: comparison of the social responsiveness scale with the autism diagnostic interview-revised. J Autism Dev Disord. 2003; 33(4):427-33. DOI: 10.1023/a:1025014929212. View

12.

Alcantara J, Weisblatt E, Moore B, Bolton P . Speech-in-noise perception in high-functioning individuals with autism or Asperger's syndrome. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2004; 45(6):1107-14. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.t01-1-00303.x. View

13.

Kasai K, Hashimoto O, Kawakubo Y, Yumoto M, Kamio S, Itoh K . Delayed automatic detection of change in speech sounds in adults with autism: a magnetoencephalographic study. Clin Neurophysiol. 2005; 116(7):1655-64. DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2005.03.007. View

14.

Oram Cardy J, Flagg E, Roberts W, Roberts T . Delayed mismatch field for speech and non-speech sounds in children with autism. Neuroreport. 2005; 16(5):521-5. DOI: 10.1097/00001756-200504040-00021. View

15.

Gervais H, Belin P, Boddaert N, Leboyer M, Coez A, Sfaello I . Abnormal cortical voice processing in autism. Nat Neurosci. 2004; 7(8):801-2. DOI: 10.1038/nn1291. View

16.

Kjelgaard M, Tager-Flusberg H . An Investigation of Language Impairment in Autism: Implications for Genetic Subgroups. Lang Cogn Process. 2006; 16(2-3):287-308. PMC: 1460015. DOI: 10.1080/01690960042000058. View

17.

Bishop D, Maybery M, Wong D, Maley A, Hill W, Hallmayer J . Are phonological processing deficits part of the broad autism phenotype?. Am J Med Genet B Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2004; 128B(1):54-60. DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.b.30039. View

18.

Ceponiene R, Lepisto T, Shestakova A, Vanhala R, Alku P, Naatanen R . Speech-sound-selective auditory impairment in children with autism: they can perceive but do not attend. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003; 100(9):5567-72. PMC: 154385. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0835631100. View

19.

Boddaert N, Chabane N, Belin P, Bourgeois M, Royer V, Barthelemy C . Perception of complex sounds in autism: abnormal auditory cortical processing in children. Am J Psychiatry. 2004; 161(11):2117-20. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.161.11.2117. View

20.

Kuhl P . A new view of language acquisition. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000; 97(22):11850-7. PMC: 34178. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.97.22.11850. View