Looking to and Processing of Audiovisual Speech in Infants at Risk for Autism

对有自闭症风险的婴儿视听言语的观察和处理

• 批准号: 10386545
• 负责人: Kacie Dunham-Carr
• 金额: $ 3.13万
• 依托单位: VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10386545
• 关键词: Looking; Processing; Audiovisual; Speech; Infants

Project Summary Understanding individual differences in language understanding and use in autism is a top priority of research, as the acquisition of language early in life has been consistently linked with long-term outcomes in individuals with autism. Typically developing children look to visual cues of speech (i.e., mouth movements), early in life during language acquisition, and visual cues facilitate speech processing across the lifespan. Looking to visual speech cues has been associated with language ability, but the neural mechanism underlying this link is not well understood. Multisensory speech processing may explain individual differences in language understanding and use. Electroencephalography (EEG) research has illustrated a boost in speech processing efficiency in response to audiovisual speech via a decrease, or suppression, in the amplitude of the event- related potential (ERP) signal in response to audiovisual speech versus auditory-only speech. Children with autism show highly variable amplitude suppression, and the degree of amplitude suppression is associated with language ability. However, it is unclear at present how early in development this phenomenon emerges and whether it explains observed links between looking to audiovisual speech and language understanding and use. This dissertation project seeks to evaluate the emergence of amplitude suppression and to statistically test whether speech processing efficiency mediates the association between early looking to audiovisual speech and language understanding and use in infants at increased likelihood for autism. A low demand measure of speech processing with the temporal precision necessary to evaluate immediate responses to speech (EEG) and a state-of-the-art measure of eye gaze with high precision to attentional focus (eye-tracking) will be used. We hypothesize that relatively low, general population level likelihood infants will display amplitude suppression at 12-18 months of age. Additionally, we hypothesize that infants at increased familial likelihood for autism on average will display less amplitude suppression compared to their lower likelihood peers. However, based on previous observations of variable audiovisual speech processing in autism, we expect to see a wide range of individual differences in the amount of amplitude suppression experienced in response to audiovisual speech. We anticipate that the degree of amplitude suppression will explain the relation between looking to audiovisual speech and language understanding and use. IMPACT: If our hypotheses are born out, the proposed work will yield empirical support for a novel framework of language learning in early development and improve our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying differential language development in infants at elevated likelihood for autism and communication disorders. This improved understanding of early language development has the potential to facilitate early identification of children who may struggle with language acquisition and guide our development of preventative interventions that may mitigate the long-term consequences of language impairments.

项目摘要 了解自闭症患者在语言理解和使用方面的个体差异是 研究，因为早期语言习得一直与长期的结果联系在一起 自闭症患者。发育中的儿童通常看语音的视觉提示(即，嘴巴运动)， 在语言习得的早期阶段，视觉线索促进了一生中的语音处理。 观察视觉语音提示一直与语言能力有关，但潜在的神经机制 这种联系还没有被很好地理解。多感官语言处理可能解释语言的个体差异 理解和使用。脑电(EEG)研究表明，语音处理能力得到了提升 通过降低或抑制事件的幅度来响应视听语音的效率- 相关电位(ERP)信号对视听语音和纯听觉语音的响应。患有以下疾病的儿童 自闭症表现出高度可变的幅度抑制，并且幅度抑制的程度与 具有语言能力。然而，目前尚不清楚这种现象在多早的发展阶段就出现了 以及它是否解释了观察到的视听语音和语言理解之间的联系 并加以利用。本论文旨在对振幅抑制的出现进行评估，并对 统计检验语音处理效率是否在早期看与看之间的关联中起中介作用 婴儿对视听、言语和语言的理解和使用增加了患自闭症的可能性。最低点 语音处理的需求度量，具有评估即刻所需的时间精度 对语音的反应(EEG)和对注意力焦点高精度的眼睛凝视的最新测量 (眼球跟踪)将被使用。我们假设相对较低的一般人口水平的婴儿可能会 12-18个月龄时表现为波幅抑制。此外，我们假设婴儿在增加 平均而言，自闭症的家族可能性表现出较少的波幅抑制。 很可能是同龄人。然而，根据先前对可变视听语音处理的观察， 自闭症，我们预计会在幅度抑制的量上看到广泛的个体差异 对视听演讲有反应的经验。我们预计，幅度抑制的程度将 解释视听演讲与语言理解和使用之间的关系。 影响：如果我们的假设诞生了，拟议的工作将为一个新的框架提供经验支持 语言学习的早期发展和提高我们对神经机制的理解 自闭症和沟通可能性增加的婴儿潜在的语言发育差异 精神错乱。这种对早期语言发展的更好的理解有可能促进早期 识别可能在语言习得上有困难的儿童，并指导我们的发展 可能减轻语言障碍的长期后果的预防性干预。