Abstract
From the time of birth, a newborn is continuously exposed and naturally attracted to human voices, and as he grows, he becomes increasingly responsive to these speech stimuli, which are strong drivers for his language development and knowledge acquisition about the world. In contrast, young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often insensitive to human voices, failing to orient and respond to them. Failure to attend to speech in turn results in altered development of language and social-communication skills. Here, we review the critical role of orienting to speech in ASD, as well as the neural substrates of human voice processing. Recent functional neuroimaging and electroencephalography studies demonstrate that aberrant voice processing could be a promising marker to identify ASD very early on. With the advent of refined brain imaging methods, coupled with the possibility of screening infants and toddlers, predictive brain function biomarkers are actively being examined and are starting to emerge. Their timely identification might not only help to differentiate between phenotypes, but also guide the clinicians in setting up appropriate therapies, and better predicting or quantifying long-term outcome.
Highlights
Autism, a term initially introduced by Kanner (1943) and almost at the same period by Asperger (1944), is a pervasive disorder of neurodevelopment with an early onset
While other reviews of auditory and speech processing impairments have been published focusing on older children and adults (e.g., Haesen et al, 2011; Kujala et al, 2013), here, we provide an overview of some of the most recent neuroimaging experiments of very young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) investigating impairments in the brain systems implicated in human vocalizations and speech and language processing (e.g., Kuhl et al, 2013; Lombardo et al, 2015) and in at-risk populations to identify early endophenotypes (Seery et al, 2013, 2014; Blasi et al, 2015)
Afterwards, we describe the neural systems within the superior temporal cortical regions implicated in human voice processing and their development in the typically developing (TD) brain and present functional evidence in adults and young adolescents indicating the presence of an aberrant form of voice processing
Summary
A term initially introduced by Kanner (1943) and almost at the same period by Asperger (1944), is a pervasive disorder of neurodevelopment with an early onset. While other reviews of auditory and speech processing impairments have been published focusing on older children and adults (e.g., Haesen et al, 2011; Kujala et al, 2013), here, we provide an overview of some of the most recent neuroimaging experiments (primarily fMRI and EEG) of very young children (before 4 years of age) with ASD investigating impairments in the brain systems implicated in human vocalizations and speech and language processing (e.g., Kuhl et al, 2013; Lombardo et al, 2015) and in at-risk populations (before the age of 2) to identify early endophenotypes (Seery et al, 2013, 2014; Blasi et al, 2015). We highlight recent results from the few existing prospective fMRI and EEG studies which employed a longitudinal design and demonstrated by using voice related auditory stimuli that aberrant voice processing is a feature present in older children and adults with ASD and a promising candidate to identify ASD very early on during the development
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
