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.
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. ? ? ?
| Sheinkopf, Stephen J; Iverson, Jana M; Rinaldi, Melissa L et al. (2012) Atypical cry acoustics in 6-month-old infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder. Autism Res 5:331-9 |
