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: 10534660
• 负责人: Kacie Dunham-Carr
• 金额: $ 3.29万
• 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 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10534660
• 关键词: Age; Age Months; Attention; Auditory; Autism Diagnosis; Behavior assessment; Child; Communication impairment; Cueing for speech; Cues; Data; Development; Early Diagnosis; Early Intervention; Early identification; Electroencephalography; Event-Related Potentials; Eye; Family; Fellowship; Future; General Population; Heterogeneity; Individual; Individual Differences; Infant; Language; Language Delays; Language Development; Language Disorders; Learning; Life; Link; Longevity; Measures; Mediating; Mediation; Modeling; Movement; Oral cavity; Outcome; Parents; Population; Proxy; Recording of previous events; Reporting; Research; Research Personnel; Research Priority; Risk; Role; Siblings; Signal Transduction; Speech; Standardization; Testing; Visual; Vocation; Work; audiovisual speech; autism spectrum disorder; autistic children; experience; gaze; improved; indexing; individuals with autism spectrum disorder; infancy; language impairment; multisensory; neural; neuromechanism; novel; peer; preventive intervention; response; social; speech processing; success; visual speech; visual tracking

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的重中之重。 研究，因为在生命早期获得语言一直与长期结果有关， 自闭症患者通常，发育中的儿童会注意言语的视觉线索（即，嘴部运动）， 在语言习得的早期阶段，视觉线索促进了整个生命周期的语音处理。 视觉语言线索与语言能力有关，但其背后的神经机制 这种联系还没有得到很好的理解。多感官言语处理可以解释语言的个体差异 理解和使用。脑电图（EEG）的研究已经说明了语音处理的推进 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）信号的视听语音与语音。儿童 孤独症表现出高度可变的振幅抑制，振幅抑制的程度与 语言能力。然而，目前尚不清楚这种现象在发展的多早出现 以及它是否解释了视听语言和语言理解之间的联系 和使用.本论文项目旨在评估振幅抑制的出现， 从统计学上测试语音处理效率是否介导了早期寻找与 视听言语和语言理解和使用的婴儿增加自闭症的可能性。低 语音处理的需求测量，具有评估即时 言语反应（EEG）和最先进的眼睛凝视测量，对注意力焦点具有高精度 （眼动追踪）。我们假设，相对较低的，一般人群水平的可能性婴儿将 在12-18月龄时显示振幅抑制。此外，我们假设婴儿在增加 平均而言，自闭症的家族可能性与其较低的振幅抑制相比， 可能性对等体。然而，根据以前对可变视听语音处理的观察， 在自闭症中，我们期望看到幅度抑制量的广泛个体差异 对视听语言的反应。我们预计振幅抑制的程度将 解释视听言语与语言理解和使用之间的关系。 影响：如果我们的假设被证明是正确的，那么所提出的工作将为一个新的框架提供实证支持。 语言学习的早期发展，提高我们对神经机制的理解 自闭症和沟通可能性升高的婴儿的潜在差异语言发展 紊乱这种对早期语言发展的更好理解有可能促进早期语言发展。 识别可能在语言习得方面有困难的儿童，并指导我们的发展， 预防性干预措施可能会减轻语言障碍的长期后果。