Expressive and Receptive Prosody in Autism

描述（由申请人提供）：自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一组神经精神疾病，其核心行为特征包括相互社会互动、交流以及重复、刻板或受限的兴趣和行为的障碍。韵律赤字的重要性，在自适应交际能力的扬声器与ASD，以及为更充分地了解这些疾病的社会残疾的核心是公认的，但目前的研究很少的数量和有显着的方法局限性。拟议项目的目标是通过一系列实验，解决这些残疾和相关领域的功能，以详细的韵律赤字与ASD的年轻扬声器。该项目的主要特点包括：1）创新技术的应用。本研究将应用计算机语音和语言技术来量化表达性韵律、计算对话结构、产生声学控制的语音刺激来测量接受性韵律;并且，所有实验都将通过计算机进行，以确保刺激的一致性和记录反应的准确性; 2）韵律维度的广泛覆盖。韵律的所有三个功能，语法，语用和情感，将得到解决;表达和接受的任务包括在内;和语境化的任务（对话，故事理解和记忆）和去语境化的任务（例如，语音情感识别）; 3）纳入神经心理学评估和分类方法，以解决组内异质性并获得组的详细特征; 4）纳入两个对照组：具有典型发育的儿童和具有发育性语言障碍的儿童; 5）纳入实验性治疗计划，以增强ASD说话者的韵律能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) form a group of neuropsychiatric conditions whose core behavioral features include impairments in reciprocal social interaction, in communication, and repetitive, stereotyped, or restricted interests and behaviors. The importance of prosodic deficits in the adaptive communicative competence of speakers with ASD, as well as for a fuller understanding of the social disabilities central to these disorders is generally recognized; yet current studies are few in number and have significant methodological limitations. The objective of the proposed project is to detail prosodic deficits in young speakers with ASD through a series of experiments that address these disabilities and related areas of function. Key features of the project include: 1) the application of innovative technology. The study will apply computer-based speech and language technologies for quantifying expressive prosody, for computing dialogue structure, and for generating acoustically controlled speech stimuli for measuring receptive prosody; moreover, all experiments will be delivered via computer to insure consistency of stimuli and accuracy of recording responses; 2) broad coverage of the dimensions of prosody. All three functions of prosody, grammatical, pragmatic, and affective, will be addressed; expressive and receptive tasks are included; and both contextualized tasks (dialogue, story comprehension and memory) and decontextualized tasks (e.g., vocal affect recognition) will be used; 3) inclusion of neuropsychological assessment and classification methodologies to address within-group heterogeneity and obtain a detailed characterization of the groups; 4) inclusion of two comparison groups: children with typical development and those with Developmental Language Disorder; 5) inclusion of an experimental treatment program to enhance the prosodic abilities of speakers with ASD.