Naturalistic Social Communication in Autistic Females: Identification of Speech Prosody Markers

自闭症女性的自然社交沟通：语音韵律标记的识别

• 批准号: 10823000
• 负责人: Orla Caroline Putnam
• 金额: $ 4.13万
• 依托单位: UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10823000
• 关键词: Age; Area; Behavioral; Characteristics; Child; Communication; Communities; Compensation; Complex; Comprehensive Health Care; Data; Development; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Early Diagnosis; Emotional; Emotions; Female; Frequencies; Gender; Goals; Individual; Knowledge; Language; Measurement; Measures; Methodology; Modality; Motivation; National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; Outcome; Parents; Participant; Personal Satisfaction; Persons; Phenotype; Play; Population; Reporting; Research; Research Personnel; Research Support; Role; Sampling; Sex Differences; Social Behavior; Social Interaction; Speech; Standardization; Statistical Data Interpretation; Stress; Structure; Training; Underrepresented Populations; Visual attention; Vocation; Voice; Women' s Group; Work; autism spectrum disorder; autistic; autistic children; biomarker identification; design; diagnostic tool; experience; female couples; improved; interest; language processing; male; men' s group; multimodal data; multimodality; natural language; novel; peer; phrases; repetitive behavior; sex; skills; social; social attention; social communication; social skills; theories; trait; visual tracking

PROJECT SUMMARY Autistic females are diagnosed at a significantly lower rate and at later ages than males. As a result, much less is known about the female autism phenotype. Studies have indicated that diagnostic tools may be biased towards males and that findings characterizing the autism phenotype may fail to capture females due to little or no female representation in their sample. Emerging research has identified unique sex differences in the autistic population across several modalities, including language. The handful of studies that have characterized language use in autistic females have done so through examining word use, identifying nuanced ways that autistic females use discourse markers, pronouns, and emotional words. These differences may contribute to autistic females’ heightened social motivation, using language to compensate for social difficulties, although no study has directly explored this possibility. We propose to bridge this gap through a focus on speech prosody, an understudied area of pragmatic language that allows individuals to convey meaning and emotion through speech. Prosody plays an important role in social-communication and in the early detection of autism, yet few studies have included females in their sample and no study has closely examined potential sex differences. In Aim 1, we will characterize differences in key prosodic markers of pitch and tempo in young children (4-8 years) by sex, diagnosis, and conversational content using a novel adaptation of natural language sampling methodology. In Aim 2, we will use multi-modal data collected through an ongoing study (R01-HD103895-01A1) to explore the relationship between speech prosody, social traits, and formal language. We hypothesize that the autistic (ASD) group will significantly differ from the non-autistic (NA) group in multiple measures of pitch and tempo, and that these differences will be exacerbated during conversation around a “special interest” topic. We predict that while ASD females will display more “typical” prosody in common prosodic measurements of pitch, they will be differentiated from ASD males and NA females in more socially complex measurements of intonation, speech rate, and pause. We predict overall negative relationships between social measurements and speech prosody markers associated with ASD: These relationships will be stronger for ASD females than males, while relationships between speech prosody and language scores will be stronger for ASD males. Training aims include advancing Ms. Putnam’s skills in multi-modal methodologies, eye tracking, language processing, and statistical analyses. This project will enhance current understanding of speech prosody and how it relates to other important aspects of the autism phenotype. By further characterizing the female autism phenotype, this work will contribute to more timely diagnoses and comprehensive care of this understudied population.

项目摘要 与男性相比，女性被诊断出患有自闭症的比率明显较低，年龄也较晚。结果， 女性自闭症的表现型研究表明，诊断工具可能偏向于 男性和自闭症表型特征的研究结果可能无法捕捉女性，由于很少或没有女性 在他们的样本中。新兴的研究已经确定了自闭症人群中独特的性别差异 包括语言在内的多种形式。少数几项研究描述了语言使用的特点， 自闭症女性通过检查词语的使用，识别自闭症女性使用的微妙方式， 话语标记、代词和情感词。这些差异可能有助于自闭症女性的 提高社会动机，使用语言来弥补社会困难，尽管没有研究直接 探索了这种可能性。我们建议弥合这一差距，通过对语音韵律的重点，一个欠研究 允许人们通过言语传达意义和情感的实用语言领域。韵律 在社交和自闭症的早期检测中起着重要作用，但很少有研究 包括女性在内，没有研究仔细研究过潜在的性别差异。在目标1中，我们 按性别描述幼儿（4-8岁）音高和克里思的关键韵律标记的差异， 诊断和会话内容，使用自然语言采样方法的新适应。在 目的2，我们将使用通过正在进行的研究（R 01-HD 103895 - 01 A1）收集的多模态数据来探索 言语韵律、社会特征和正式语言之间的关系。我们假设自闭症患者（ASD） 组将显着不同于非自闭症（NA）组在音高和克里思的多个措施， 在围绕“特殊兴趣”话题的谈话中，这些差异会加剧。我们预测， ASD女性在音高的普通韵律测量中会表现出更“典型”的韵律， 与ASD男性和NA女性在更复杂的语调，言语， 率，并暂停。我们预测社会测量和言语韵律之间的总体负相关关系 与ASD相关的标志物：这些关系对于ASD女性比男性更强， 对于ASD男性，语音韵律和语言分数之间的关系将更强。培养目标 包括提高普特南女士在多模式方法、眼动跟踪、语言处理方面的技能， 统计分析。这个项目将提高目前对语音韵律的理解，以及它如何与 自闭症表型的其他重要方面。通过进一步描述女性自闭症表型， 这项工作将有助于更及时地诊断和全面照顾这一研究不足的人口。