Atypical vocal imitation of speech and song in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from Mandarin speakers.
Li Wang, Peter Q Pfordresher, Cunmei Jiang and 1 others
PMID 39239838WHAT IT FOUND
Mandarin-speaking autistic children copied timing and pitch shape less accurately than non-autistic peers, especially in speech.
Overall pitch height did not differ between groups. In song, timing was less accurate, while pitch height was not.
Key findings
01When imitating Mandarin speech, the autistic group was less accurate than the non-autistic group at matching pitch intervals and timing between consecutive syllables.
02In song imitation, the autistic group was less accurate than the non-autistic group at matching timing, while absolute pitch matching did not differ between groups.
03The autistic group made more pitch contour errors than the non-autistic group in both speech and song imitation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The participants were autistic children with cognitive functioning on the typical to higher end of the autism spectrum, so the findings may not apply to autistic children with greater cognitive disadvantages. The study did not measure expressive language, so differences in expressive language could have influenced the group differences. Receptive vocabulary was measured with a test whose Chinese norms did not cover all ages, and American norms were used for older participants. The sample included children and adolescents across a wide age range, and voice changes around puberty were not directly measured. The study did not involve community members. It did not test a treatment or a clinical outcome.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by a European Research Council Starting Grant to F.L. and C.J. and a National Science Foundation grant to P.Q.P. The supplied text does not report other conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that song-based therapy improves speech or communication in autistic Mandarin-speaking children. This study only measured how accurately children imitated recorded speech and song in the task. It did not test a treatment or a clinical outcome.