Linguistic camouflage in girls with autism spectrum disorder.
Julia Parish-Morris, Mark Y Liberman, Christopher Cieri and 7 others
PMID 29021889WHAT IT FOUND
Girls with autism used um in more of their filled pauses than boys did, by using less uh.
More uh related to lower parent-reported socialization, so speech patterns may mask autism signs.
Key findings
01Girls with ASD used UM in about 75% of filled pauses, versus 56% for boys, while average UM use did not differ.
02Boys with ASD produced more UH than girls with ASD. Higher UH use was associated with lower parent-reported socialization in boys, with a similar trend in girls.
03Girls with ASD had UM and UH levels comparable to typical girls, while boys with ASD differed from typical boys.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The typically developing comparison group was small, with 17 children, so group differences should be read cautiously. Girls with ASD were fewer than boys, limiting power to analyze girls separately. Only UM and UH were studied, not the full range of disfluencies or everyday conversation. Speech samples came from a semi-structured ADOS-2 interview, so question order and clinician sex may have shaped the samples. Motor ability, co-occurring conditions, and responses to different social topic loads were not measured. The study did not test a treatment or diagnostic tool, so it cannot show that filled pause patterns improve identification or outcomes.
Declared interests
Funded by the Autism Science Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Institute of Mental Health. No conflict-of-interest declaration is provided in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that girls with autism have milder social communication problems because their speech sounds typical. In this sample, girls and boys with autism had comparable social communication skills and symptom severity, and the speech difference was not explained by better social ability.