STUDIES OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATION IN SPEAKERS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

项目III拟议的研究将考察说话者社交沟通的两个组成部分 自闭症：对话语用学，尤其是当这些人受到狭隘利益的影响时； 以及韵律的产生和感知。这些技能将在两点的横断面设计中进行检验。 发展水平：青春期前和青春期，并将对比演讲者在 关于自闭症谱系障碍的所有观点都有典型的发展。这些研究是在我们正在进行的基础上发展起来的 自闭症谱系障碍患者的社交兴趣及其表现 智力和语言能力较高，但实现社会目标的能力严重受损 互动。研究1深入考察了在有组织的语言中产生适当言语行为的能力 对话，使用脚本化、自然主义的互动协议，旨在引发特定的言语行为 并产生了对话技能的量化测量。除了观察目标是否 言语行为的产生，该协议还使用了动态评估格式来提供有序的 提示的层次结构，并对引发非自发发生的行为所需的提示级别进行评级。一个 该协议的另一个方面是评估狭隘利益对语用表现的影响。 此协议的性能将与非结构化同级中的语用技能评级进行比较 互动。这项研究有可能产生一种标准的、定量的、经过验证的语用测量方法 在临床环境中使用的能力，以评估实用能力和测量治疗中的变化。学习 2扩展了我们关于韵律在自闭症社交障碍中的作用的工作。我们建议使用 新获得的韵律测量，以典型儿童为常模，评估3个韵律功能水平-- 语法、语用和情感--自闭症受试者。这项研究还将包括使用 接受性韵律任务。韵律产生的模式及其在两个发展阶段的变化 在研究期间，也将使用临床和语音技术方法进行检查。这些数据 将有助于阐明韵律知觉和产生之间的关系，识别流行率和 ASD内韵律缺陷的模式，并导致开发干预方法 解决这些赤字问题。

Project III The proposed study will examine two components of social communication in speakers with autism: conversational pragmatics, especially as these are impacted by the presence of narrow interests; and production and perception of prosody. These skills will be examined in a cross-sectional design at two developmental levels: preadolescence and adolescence, and will contrast performance among speakers at all points on the Autism Spectrum Disorder with typical development. The studies grow out of our on-going interest in social communication and its manifestation in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) with high levels of intellectual and linguistic ability, but significant impairment in the capacity to achieve social interaction. Study 1 examines in depth the ability to produce appropriate speech acts in a structured conversation, using a scripted, naturalistic interactive protocol that is designed to elicit specific speech acts and yields a quantitative measure of conversational skill. In addition to observing whether or not the target speech acts are produced, the protocol also uses a dynamic assessment format to provide a sequenced hierarchy of prompts, and rates the level of prompt needed to elicit acts that do not occur spontaneously. An additional aspect of the protocol is the assessment of impact of narrow interests on pragmatic performance. Performance on this protocol will be compared to a rating of pragmatic skills in an unstructured peer interaction. This study has the potential to yield a standard quantitative, validated measure of pragmatic competence for use in clinical settings to evaluate pragmatic ability and measure change in treatment. Study 2 extends our work on the role of prosody in social communication deficits in ASD. We propose to use a newly available measure of prosody, normed on typical children, to assess 3 levels of prosodic function -- grammatical, pragmatic, and affective- in subjects with ASD. This study will also include fMRI work using the receptive prosody tasks. Patterns of prosodic production, and their change over the two developmental periods in the study, will also be examined, using both clinical and speech technology methods. These data will be help to elucidate the relations between prosodic perception and production, identify prevalence and patterns of prosodic deficits within ASD, and lead toward the development of intervention approaches to address these deficits.