Autism Spectrum Disorder Speech Research Articles

Figurative language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A review.

Impairments in the broader domain of pragmatics are considered to be a defining feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A challenging aspect of pragmatic competence is the ability to process nonliteral language. Interestingly, previous studies in figurative language comprehension in ASD have demonstrated conflicting results regarding participants' performance. The main scientific debate focuses on the underlying skills which facilitate processing of nonliteral speech in ASD. Namely, Theory of Mind (ToM), language abilities and Executive functions (EFs) are regarded as factors affecting autistic individuals' performance. This review addresses figurative language comprehension in ASD in light of the above three interpretive accounts. We reviewed data from recent studies in this field concluding that autistic children indeed encounter systematic difficulties in the processing of non-literal language. Moreover, only ToM and verbal skills were found to correlate the most with figurative language comprehension in ASD. Notably, we found that differences related to research methodology and tasks' properties may have led to discrepancies between studies' results. Finally, we argue that future studies should encompass in their experimental design figurative comprehension tasks with minimal linguistic demands and also measures of ToM, verbal ability and EFs in order to shed more light in the independent contribution of those skills to the processing of nonliteral language in ASD.

Atypical functional connectivity of temporal cortex with precuneus and visual regions may be an early-age signature of ASD

BackgroundSocial and language abilities are closely intertwined during early typical development. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), however, deficits in social and language development are early-age core symptoms. We previously reported that superior temporal cortex, a well-established social and language region, shows reduced activation to social affective speech in ASD toddlers; however, the atypical cortical connectivity that accompanies this deviance remains unknown.MethodsWe collected clinical, eye tracking, and resting-state fMRI data from 86 ASD and non-ASD subjects (mean age 2.3 ± 0.7 years). Functional connectivity of left and right superior temporal regions with other cortical regions and correlations between this connectivity and each child’s social and language abilities were examined.ResultsWhile there was no group difference in functional connectivity, the connectivity between superior temporal cortex and frontal and parietal regions was significantly correlated with language, communication, and social abilities in non-ASD subjects, but these effects were absent in ASD subjects. Instead, ASD subjects, regardless of different social or nonsocial visual preferences, showed atypical correlations between temporal–visual region connectivity and communication ability (r(49) = 0.55, p < 0.001) and between temporal–precuneus connectivity and expressive language ability (r(49) = 0.58, p < 0.001).LimitationsThe distinct connectivity–behavior correlation patterns may be related to different developmental stages in ASD and non-ASD subjects. The use of a prior 2-year-old template for spatial normalization may not be optimal for a few subjects beyond this age range.ConclusionsSuperior temporal cortex is known to have reduced activation to social affective speech in ASD at early ages, and here we find in ASD toddlers that it also has atypical connectivity with visual and precuneus cortices that is correlated with communication and language ability, a pattern not seen in non-ASD toddlers. This atypicality may be an early-age signature of ASD that also explains why the disorder has deviant early language and social development. Given that these atypical connectivity patterns are also present in older individuals with ASD, we conclude these atypical connectivity patterns persist across age and may explain why successful interventions targeting language and social skills at all ages in ASD are so difficult to achieve.

Olanzapine, risperidone, and aripiprazole use in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to examine the use of olanzapine, risperidone and aripiprazole in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in terms of their effects and side effects. MethodsASD patients that had been initiated to be treated with one of the three antipsychotics that continued for a minimum of eight weeks were included in the study, retrospectively. The participants were recruited with 20 olanzapine using patients (2.5−10 mg/day) in comparison with 42 risperidone (1−4 mg/day) and 40 aripiprazole (3−15 mg/day) using patients that are using the matched equivalent chlorpromazine doses of the antipsychotics between the same time period. ResultsAll three antipsychotics significantly decreased all of the ABC subscales scores in eight weeks. Sleepiness/sedation, increased duration of sleep, and weight gain were the most common side effects of the three antipsychotics and they were more frequent with olanzapine than with the others (X2 = 26.9, p < 0.0001; X2 = 20.8, p < 0.0001; X2 = 8.4, p = 0.01, respectively). DiscussionOur results reveal that risperidone, aripiprazole, and olanzapine are effective in treatment of irritability, hyperactivity, social withdrawal, stereotypy, and inappropriate speech in ASD. But the side effects are more frequent with olanzapine and it should be considered when choosing antipsychotics for ASD.

Aberrant Development of Speech Processing in Young Children with Autism: New Insights from Neuroimaging Biomarkers.

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.

P.7.c.001 The use of medication against attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in Slovenia: a drug consumption study

The aim of this study is to examine the use of olanzapine, risperidone and aripiprazole in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in terms of their effects and side effects.ASD patients that had been initiated to be treated with one of the three antipsychotics that continued for a minimum of eight weeks were included in the study, retrospectively. The participants were recruited with 20 olanzapine using patients (2.5−10 mg/day) in comparison with 42 risperidone (1−4 mg/day) and 40 aripiprazole (3−15 mg/day) using patients that are using the matched equivalent chlorpromazine doses of the antipsychotics between the same time period.All three antipsychotics significantly decreased all of the ABC subscales scores in eight weeks. Sleepiness/sedation, increased duration of sleep, and weight gain were the most common side effects of the three antipsychotics and they were more frequent with olanzapine than with the others (X2 = 26.9, p < 0.0001; X2 = 20.8, p < 0.0001; X2 = 8.4, p = 0.01, respectively).Our results reveal that risperidone, aripiprazole, and olanzapine are effective in treatment of irritability, hyperactivity, social withdrawal, stereotypy, and inappropriate speech in ASD. But the side effects are more frequent with olanzapine and it should be considered when choosing antipsychotics for ASD.

Aberrant Language Reward Circuitry in High-Functioning Autism

Two hallmarks of speech in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are not responding to, or not being soothed by, human speech, such as a mother's voice, and a lack of usual prosody (intonation and pitch), which can present as a singsong emphasis or a flat, affectless tone. These investigators used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine neurological bases of …

Quantifying Repetitive Speech in Autism Spectrum Disorders and Language Impairment

We report on an automatic technique for quantifying two types of repetitive speech: repetitions of what the child says him/herself (self-repeats) and of what is uttered by an interlocutor (echolalia). We apply this technique to a sample of 111 children between the ages of four and eight: 42 typically developing children (TD), 19 children with specific language impairment (SLI), 25 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) plus language impairment (ALI), and 25 children with ASD with normal, non-impaired language (ALN). The results indicate robust differences in echolalia between the TD and ASD groups as a whole (ALN + ALI), and between TD and ALN children. There were no significant differences between ALI and SLI children for echolalia or self-repetitions. The results confirm previous findings that children with ASD repeat the language of others more than other populations of children. On the other hand, self-repetition does not appear to be significantly more frequent in ASD, nor does it matter whether the child's echolalia occurred within one (immediate) or two turns (near-immediate) of the adult's original utterance. Furthermore, non-significant differences between ALN and SLI, between TD and SLI, and between ALI and TD are suggestive that echolalia may not be specific to ALN or to ASD in general. One important innovation of this work is an objective fully automatic technique for assessing the amount of repetition in a transcript of a child's utterances.

Effects of Background Noise on Cortical Encoding of Speech in Autism Spectrum Disorders

This study provides new evidence of deficient auditory cortical processing of speech in noise in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Speech-evoked responses (approximately 100-300 ms) in quiet and background noise were evaluated in typically-developing (TD) children and children with ASD. ASD responses showed delayed timing (both conditions) and reduced amplitudes (quiet) compared to TD responses. As expected, TD responses in noise were delayed and reduced compared to quiet responses. However, minimal quiet-to-noise response differences were found in children with ASD, presumably because quiet responses were already severely degraded. Moreover, ASD quiet responses resembled TD noise responses, implying that children with ASD process speech in quiet only as well as TD children do in background noise.