Assessment of speech- and fine-motor coordination and their link to language in children with autism spectrum disorder

项目摘要 自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种与言语运动障碍相关的神经发育障碍 生产和精细运动任务。然而，对运动障碍的评估可能是主观的，并且会错过微妙的 和特殊的异常因此，有必要制定客观的措施，临床医生评估和 了解自闭症患者的言语和精细运动障碍。此外，最近的研究表明， 言语产生、精细运动和眼动任务的困难可能会导致语言困难 在ASD该项目的目的是发展言语和精细运动协调的客观措施， ASD儿童，并描述运动模态和表达性语言之间的关系， ASD使用这些措施。我们将集中在三个语音子系统：发音，喉，和呼吸， 以及笔迹和眼球运动。在卢里自闭症中心进行的一项试点研究中， 利用我们实验室开发的新颖协调功能，突出协调的较低复杂性，或更高 与神经型ASD儿童相比， 对照分析还表明，ASD儿童在书写过程中协调的复杂性较低， 这表明在这些运动系统中可能存在类似的潜在机制。在拟议的项目中， 我们将在这些有希望的结果的基础上进行扩展，使用低水平特征评估运动协调的措施 来自ASD儿童和神经典型自闭症儿童完成的语音、手写和眼动任务。 对照我们将采用声学发音反转技术来提取更生理准确的 发音器官的运动和协调。目标1使用协调措施来描述 ASD儿童言语和精细运动协调的复杂性。我们还将确定 这为ASD儿童和神经典型对照儿童提供了最高的区分能力， 机器学习模型我们希望，确定复杂和重要的歧视模式， 功能将提供更好的了解电机子系统之间和内部的依赖关系， 可用于客观评估和跟踪ASD中的运动困难。目标2描述了 言语和精细运动技能与语言表达能力之间的关系。我们将评估 以及运动协调性测量与表达性语言评估分数之间的回归。 我们认为，运动任务和功能，显示出与语言能力的评价高度相关， 进一步了解运动模态如何与ASD中的语言困难相关。总的来说， 该提案旨在量化和理解ASD中的言语和精细运动协调挑战， 运动协调的客观措施，并旨在表征言语和精细之间的关系， 运动子系统和表达性语言。该项目致力于实现我们的长期目标， 一个评估、理解和跟踪ASD儿童运动和沟通挑战的平台。

PROJECT SUMMARY Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with motor difficulties in speech production and fine-motor tasks. Assessments of motor impairments, however, can be subjective and miss subtle and specific abnormalities. Therefore, there is a need to develop objective measures for clinicians to assess and understand speech- and fine-motor impairments in individuals with ASD. In addition, recent research suggests that difficulties with speech production, fine-motor, and oculo-motor tasks may contribute to language difficulties in ASD. The purpose of this project is to develop objective measures of speech- and fine-motor coordination in children with ASD, and to characterize the relationship between motor modalities and expressive language in ASD using these measures. We will focus on three speech subsystems: articulatory, laryngeal, and respiratory, as well as handwriting and eye movement. In a pilot study we conducted at the Lurie Center for Autism, we utilized novel coordination features developed in our lab to highlight lower complexity of coordination, or higher coupling, between and within speech subsystems in highly verbal children with ASD as compared to neurotypical controls. The analyses also indicated lower complexity of coordination during handwriting in children with ASD, suggesting there may be similar underlying mechanisms across these motor systems. In the proposed project, we will extend upon these promising results, evaluating measures of motor coordination using low-level features derived from speech, handwriting, and eye movement tasks completed by children with ASD and neurotypical controls. We will employ acoustic-to-articulatory inversion techniques to extract more physiologically accurate vocal tract articulator movements and coordination. Aim 1 uses measures of coordination to characterize the complexity of speech- and fine-motor coordination in children with ASD. We will also determine the features which provide the highest discriminatory ability between children with ASD and neurotypical controls using machine learning models. We expect that identification of patterns of complexity and important discriminatory features will provide a better understanding of the dependencies across and within motor subsystems, which could be used for objective assessment and tracking of motor difficulties in ASD. Aim 2 characterizes the relationship between speech- and fine-motor skills and expressive language ability. We will evaluate correlations and regressions between measures of motor coordination and scores on assessments of expressive language. We believe that motor tasks and features which show high correlations with evaluations of language ability will provide further insight into how motor modalities are associated with language difficulties in ASD. In summary, this proposal aims to quantify and understand speech- and fine-motor coordination challenges in ASD using objective measures of motor coordination, and aims to characterize the relationship between speech- and fine- motor subsystems and expressive language in ASD. This project works towards our long-term goal of developing a platform to assess, understand, and track motor and communication challenges in children with ASD.