Sensory Integration and Language Processing in Autism

自闭症的感觉统合和语言处理

• 批准号: 7882874
• 负责人: LAURA BETH SILVERMAN
• 金额: $ 15.24万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-06-01 至 2013-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7882874
• 关键词: Adaptive Behaviors; Address; Adult; Affect; Age; Auditory; Autistic Disorder; Behavior; Child; Communication; Complex; Comprehension; Computers; Data; Diagnostic; Disease; Emotional; Eye; Face; Functional disorder; Gestures; Goals; Hand; Heart Diseases; Height; Impairment; Individual; Language; Life; Lip structure; Measures; Methodology; Modality; Morphologic artifacts; Movement; Music; Nature; Ocular Fixation; Participant; Pattern; Perception; Performance; Play; Psycholinguistics; Reaction Time; Research; Resolution; Schedule; Semantics; Sensory; Sensory Process; Series; Severities; Social Interaction; Speech; Speech Sound; Speed; Stimulus; Symptoms; Testing; Time; Triad Acrylic Resin; Visual; Visual Illusions; Voice; base; clinically significant; daily functioning; design; developmental disease; instrument; language processing; musician; next generation; public health relevance; research study; semantic processing; sensory integration; social; sound; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to integrate information across sensory modalities is essential for successful social and communicative functioning in everyday life. Therefore impaired sensory integration abilities in autism could contribute to the core social and communicative impairments that typify the disorder. Although existing research describes specific sensory integration difficulties in autism, we do not yet know the full extent of the problem. Specifically, it is unclear whether language demands implicit in experimental tasks contribute to documented sensory integration dysfunction. It is also unclear whether study findings have ecological validity, given that tasks have generally involved computer-based stimuli using auditory beeps and flashes. The purpose of the proposed study is to characterize the nature of sensory integration abilities in autism, using a set of complex, ecologically valid stimuli that systematically vary language and social demands across three experiments. This study also tests whether sensory processing abilities have clinical significance and relate to severity of autistic symptoms and level of daily functioning. There are 4 primary aims: 1) To test sensory integration of supplementary gestures and speech, when integration is necessary for understanding (i.e., neither gesture nor speech provide adequate information for reference resolution); 2) to test integration of complementary gestures and speech, when integration supports comprehension but is not necessary for understanding (i.e., speech provides adequate information for reference resolution, but gesture offers supporting content); 3) to test sensory integration in the absence of language and social demands (i.e., integration of musical performance gestures and musical notes); 4) to assess whether there is a relationship between sensory integration abilities and symptom severity and daily functioning. Participants will be 30 individuals with high functioning autism and 30 well matched controls between the ages of 13 and 20. The time course of sensory integration will be measured using eye-tracking methodologies that record visual fixations during computer-based tasks involving gesture, speech, and musical notes. Additional measures of sensory integration abilities will include accuracy scores on video-based tasks, reaction time data, and note duration estimates on music perception tasks involving co-expressive performance gestures. This study is purely translational since it applies psycholinguistic and music perception methodologies to examine underlying impairments in autism. Findings from this study will have direct implications for understanding the core deficits in autism and for designing the next generation of sensory integration therapies. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Project Narrative Autism is a developmental disorder that affects approximately 1 in 150 children and is characterized by a triad of impairments in communication, social interaction, and restricted and repetitive behaviors. Current theories suggest that difficulties integrating information across sensory modalities may be at the heart of the disorder. This proposal describes a series of experiments designed to characterize audio-visual integration of gesture, speech and non-speech sounds in high-functioning autism to test whether these abilities are related to current functioning and expression of symptom severity in autism.

描述（由申请人提供）：跨感觉模态整合信息的能力对于日常生活中成功的社交和沟通功能至关重要。因此，自闭症患者的感觉统合能力受损可能会导致这种疾病的核心社会和沟通障碍。虽然现有的研究描述了自闭症的感觉统合困难，但我们还不知道问题的全部程度。具体来说，目前还不清楚是否语言要求隐含在实验任务有助于记录的感觉统合失调。目前还不清楚研究结果是否具有生态有效性，因为任务通常涉及使用听觉蜂鸣声和闪光的基于计算机的刺激。这项研究的目的是描述自闭症感觉统合能力的性质，使用一组复杂的，生态上有效的刺激，系统地改变语言和社会需求在三个实验。本研究还测试了感觉处理能力是否具有临床意义，以及与自闭症症状的严重程度和日常功能水平的关系。有4个主要目的：1）测试辅助手势和语音的感觉整合，当整合对于理解是必要的时（即，手势和语音都不提供用于参考解析的足够信息）; 2）当整合支持理解但不是理解所必需时，测试互补手势和语音的整合（即，语音为参考解析提供了足够的信息，但手势提供了支持内容）; 3）在没有语言和社会需求的情况下测试感觉整合（即，音乐表演手势和音符的整合）; 4）评估感觉整合能力与症状严重程度和日常功能之间是否存在关系。参与者将是30名高功能自闭症患者和30名年龄在13岁至20岁之间的匹配良好的对照组。感觉整合的时间过程将使用眼动追踪方法来测量，该方法记录了基于计算机的任务（包括手势、语音和音符）期间的视觉注视。感觉统合能力的其他措施将包括基于视频的任务，反应时间数据的准确性分数，并注意到持续时间估计音乐感知任务，涉及共同表达的表演手势。这项研究是纯粹的翻译，因为它适用于心理语言学和音乐感知方法来检查自闭症的潜在障碍。这项研究的发现将对理解自闭症的核心缺陷和设计下一代感觉统合疗法产生直接影响。 公共卫生相关性：自闭症是一种发育障碍，大约每150名儿童中就有1名患有自闭症，其特征是在沟通，社交互动以及限制和重复行为方面存在三重障碍。目前的理论表明，难以整合跨感官形式的信息可能是这种疾病的核心。该提案描述了一系列旨在表征高功能自闭症中手势，语音和非语音声音的视听整合的实验，以测试这些能力是否与自闭症的当前功能和症状严重程度的表达相关。