A Six-Minute Measure of Vocalizations in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Elena J Tenenbaum, Kimberly L H Carpenter, Maura Sabatos-DeVito and 4 others
PMID 32212384WHAT IT FOUND
Toddlers with autism produced more nonsyllabic vocalizations and fewer syllabic ones during a six-minute tablet task than typically developing children.
However, these vocal patterns did not reliably distinguish autism from other developmental language delays in this small sample.
Key findings
01Children with autism produced significantly more nonsyllabic vocalizations than both typically developing children and those with developmental language delays.
02Children with autism had significantly lower ratios of syllabic vocalizations compared to typically developing children, but this measure did not distinguish autism from developmental language delays.
03The number of nonsyllabic vocalizations correlated with restricted and repetitive behaviors on the ADOS-2, but other vocal measures did not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small, particularly the group with developmental language delays (n = 8), which limits the ability to determine if these vocal markers are specific to autism. The study was a proof-of-concept and did not assess test-retest reliability. IQ measures were not collected, so it is unclear if vocal patterns were related to broader developmental delays. The children were 16 to 31 months old, which is late for assessing early vocal milestones like canonical babbling.
Declared interests
The study was supported by NIH grants and other government research funding. No commercial conflicts of interest were reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these vocal measures can diagnose autism. The study showed that children with autism and those with developmental language delays had similar syllabic vocalization ratios, meaning this marker cannot distinguish between the two conditions in this sample.