Audiovisual Speech Integration in Children with ASD

描述（由申请人提供）：自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）指的是一系列严重的神经精神障碍，其特征是沟通障碍、社会互惠性缺陷和限制性重复行为的存在。对于典型的听众来说，说话者面部的视觉信息会影响他们所听到的内容。患有自闭症谱系障碍的人对面孔的社交注视减少，这表明在这一人群中，很多关于视觉语言的信息丢失了。因此，患有ASD的儿童和青少年似乎不太容易受到视觉语言信息的影响。这个项目的目的是检查高功能、语言能力强的自闭症儿童对视觉语言信息的敏感度。该应用程序使用创新的视觉跟踪方法来(1)评估ASD儿童在清晰和嘈杂的听力条件下与正常发育（TD）对照组相比，整合视听（AV）语音的程度，(2)检查ASD和TD感知者检测AV语音异步性的能力，这与典型感知者的AV整合有关，(3)评估ASD和TD感知者对说话者面部的凝视行为。低功能、无语言能力的ASD儿童在生产语言和社会互动方面的局限性导致他们在言语感知研究中的代表性不足。因此，本应用程序的另一个目标是为低功能、非语言的ASD儿童和年幼的TD儿童开发一种训练程序，使他们能够参与听觉和视听语言的感知研究。相关性：仔细评估语言对视觉信息的敏感性对理解高功能自闭症儿童的语言感知加工具有重要的实践和理论意义，包括(1)识别和表征AV整合缺陷和(2)设计有针对性的干预措施。此外，针对非语言低功能自闭症儿童和更小的自闭症儿童的训练程序的发展，将有助于更好地理解非语言儿童对语言的感知加工，并为未来的干预提供模型。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) refer to a continuum of severe neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by deficits in communication, social reciprocity and the presence of restricted, repetitive behaviors. For typical listeners, visual information from a speaker's face influences what is heard. Individuals with ASD show reduced social gaze to faces, which suggests that much information about visual speech is lost in this population. Accordingly, children and adolescents with ASD appear to be less susceptible to visual speech information. The goal of this project is to examine sensitivity to visual speech information in high-functioning, verbal children with ASD. This application uses innovative visual tracking methodology to (1) evaluate the degree to which children with ASD integrate audiovisual (AV) speech in comparison to typically developing (TD) controls in clear and noisy listening conditions, (2) examine ASD and TD perceivers' ability to detect asynchrony in AV speech, which is related to AV integration in typical perceivers, and (3) assess the gaze behavior of ASD and TD perceivers to a speaker's face. Limitations in productive language and difficulty with social interaction in low-functioning, non-verbal children with ASD have led to their under-representation in perceptual studies of speech. Thus, an additional goal of this application is to develop a training procedure for low-functioning, nonverbal children with ASD and younger TD children that will allow for their participation in perceptual studies of auditory and AV speech. RELEVANCE: The careful evaluation of sensitivity to visual information for speech has important practical and theoretical implications for the understanding of perceptual processing of speech in high-functioning children with ASD, including in (1) the identification and characterization of AV integration deficits and (2) the design of targeted interventions. Further, the development of a training procedure for non-verbal low-functioning children with ASD and for younger, TD children will allow for greater understanding of perceptual processing of speech in non-verbal children and serve as a model for future intervention.