Nonlinguistic Vocalizations in Autism: Acoustic Cry Analysis in Early Infancy

描述（由申请人提供）：自闭症与声音产生和情绪信号的中断有关。先前的研究已经确定了自闭症儿童说话和发声的韵律质量的非典型性。即使是非常年幼的婴儿，也可以通过测量哭声的韵律特征来测量声音产生的这种非语言方面。从生物社会模型来看，婴儿哭泣既可以被视为神经生理功能的非特异性指标，也可以被视为生命最初几个月二元社会互动的重要机会。因此，哭泣产生的非典型化可能反映了声音产生和情绪信号发展的中断。迄今为止，对后来被诊断为自闭症的婴儿发出声音的系统研究很少，而且还没有研究调查这一人群的哭泣特征。自闭症的非典型哭泣特征的识别将有助于改进对婴儿期自闭症的识别工作。这项研究将测量自闭症儿童早期家庭录像中哭声的声学特性。我们将利用各种宣传手段，向自闭症谱系障碍儿童的父母征集家庭录像带。分析将仅限于婴儿出生后6个月的记录。这些包含自发哭声的部分声音样本将被选择并分析一系列声学特征。我们将比较自闭症儿童和一组非自闭症婴儿的哭声的声学特征，这些婴儿在录音时的年龄以及录像的一般设置特征与自闭症婴儿相匹配。我们将使用一种哭泣分析系统，该系统已广泛用于典型和特殊人群的研究。在本研究中使用的哭泣分析系统的一个独特特征是，它被设计为模拟年幼婴儿独特的声道质量。本研究对自闭症早期筛查的应用研究，以及自闭症沟通和声音信号的起源和发展过程的研究具有重要意义。本研究对自闭症儿童的早期识别和干预具有重要意义。通过识别与该疾病相关的婴儿期哭泣的非典型方面，本研究将有助于开发更敏感和特定的筛查和诊断工具，用于婴儿期。此外，本研究将提高我们对自闭症沟通障碍的根源和过程的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Autism is associated with disruptions in vocal production and emotional signaling. Previous research has identified atypicalities in prosodic qualities of speech and vocalizations in children with autism. Such nonverbal aspects of vocal production can be measured in even very young infants through the measurement of the prosodic qualities of cry. From a biosocial model, infant cry can be seen as both a nonspecific indicator of neurophysiologic functioning and as serving important opportunities for dyadic social interaction in the early months of life. Thus, atypicalities in cry production may reflect disruptions in the development of both vocal production and emotional signaling. To date, there has been very little systematic research on vocal production in infants later diagnosed with autism, and no study has yet to investigate cry characteristics in this population. The identification of atypical cry characteristics in autism would help to improve efforts to identify autism in infancy. This study will measure the acoustic properties of cry from early home videotapes in children with autism. Using a variety of means of publicity, we will solicit home videotapes from parents of children with autism spectrum disorders. Analyses will be limited to recording of infants from the first 6 months of life. Portions of these vocal samples that contain spontaneous cries will be selected and analyzed for a range of acoustic characteristics. We will compare the acoustic features of cry from children with autism to a group of non-autistic infants selected to match the autistic infants in terms of age at time of recording as well as general setting characteristics of the videotape recording. We will utilize a cry analysis system that has been used in a wide range of studies of typical and special populations. A unique characteristic of the cry analysis system proposed for use in this study is that it was designed to model the qualities of the vocal tract unique to young infants. This study will have implications for both applied research on early screening, as well as research on the origins and developmental course of communication and vocal signaling in autism. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE This research is highly relevant to both early identification and intervention for children with autism. By identifying atypical aspects of cry in infancy associated with this disorder, this research will aide in the development of more sensitive and specific screening and diagnostic tools for use in infancy. In addition, this research will improve our understanding of the roots and course of communication impairments in autism.