Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:24:58.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lexical stress contrastivity in Italian children with autism spectrum disorders: an exploratory acoustic study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2019

Joanne ARCIULI Open the ORCID record for Joanne ARCIULI [Opens in a new window] ,
Lucia COLOMBO  and
Luca SURIAN
Joanne ARCIULI*
Affiliation:
University of Sydney, Australia
Lucia COLOMBO
Affiliation:
University of Padova, Italy
Luca SURIAN
Affiliation:
University of Trento, Italy
*
*Corresponding author. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe1825, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigated production of lexical stress in children with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD), all monolingual Italian speakers. The mean age of the 16 autistic children was 5.73 years and the mean age of the 16 typically developing children was 4.65 years. Picture-naming targets were five trisyllabic words that began with a weak–strong pattern of lexical stress across the initial two syllables (WS: matita) and five trisyllabic words beginning with a strong–weak pattern (SW: gomito). Acoustic measures of the duration, fundamental frequency, and intensity of the first two vowels for correct word productions were used to calculate a normalised Pairwise Variability Index (PVI) for WS and SW words. Results of acoustic analyses indicated no statistically significant group differences in PVIs. Results should be interpreted in line with the exploratory nature of this study. We hope this study will encourage additional cross-linguistic studies of prosody in children's speech production.

Keywords

lexical stressacoustic analysisautismASDItalian
Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , July 2020 , pp. 870 - 880
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, L. (1998). Oral-motor and motor-speech characteristics of children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 13(2), 108–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, G., & Hawkins, S. (1980). Phonological rhythm: definition and development. In Yeni-Komshian, G., Kavanagh, J., & Ferguson, C. (Eds.), Child phonology: production (pp. 227–56). New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1997 [1994]). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (trans. Andreoli, V., Cassano, G. B., & Rossi, R.) (4th ed.). Padova: Masson.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (2014 [2013]). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (trans. Cortina, R.) (5th ed.). Milano: Masson.Google Scholar
Arciuli, J. (2014). Prosody and autism. In Arciuli, J. & Brock, J. (Eds.), Communication in Autism (pp. 103–22). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Arciuli, J., & Bailey, B. (2019). An acoustic study of lexical stress contrastivity in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Child Language, 46(1), 147–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arciuli, J., & Ballard, K. J. (2017). Still not adult-like: lexical stress contrastivity in word productions of eight- to eleven-year-olds. Journal of Child Language, 44(5), 1274–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arciuli, J., & Colombo, L. (2016). An acoustic investigation of the developmental trajectory of lexical stress contrastivity in Italian. Speech Communication, 80, 22–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arciuli, J., Simpson, B., Vogel, A., & Ballard, K. (2014). Acoustic changes in the production of lexical stress during Lombard speech. Language and Speech, 57, 149–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ballard, K. J., Djaja, D., Arciuli, J., James, D. G., & van Doorn, J. (2012). Developmental trajectory for production of prosody: lexical stress contrastivity in children ages 3 to 7 years and in adults. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 1822–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ballard, K. J., Savage, S., Leyton, C. E., Vogel, A. P., & Hodges, J. R. (2014). Logopenic and nonfluent variants of primary progressive aphasia are differentiated by acoustic measures of speech production. PLoS One, 9, e89864.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Belmonte, M. K., Saxena-Chandhok, T., Cherian, R., Muneer, R., George, L., & Karanth, P. (2013). Oral motor deficits in speech-impaired children with autism. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 7, 47, e00047.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2010). PRAAT (Version 5.2.0.1) [Computer software]. Amsterdam: Institute of Phonetic Sciences.Google Scholar
Bortolini, U., Arfe, B., Caselli, C., Degasperi, L., Deevy, P., & Leonard, L. (2006). Clinical markers for specific language impairment in Italian: the contribution of clitics and non-word repetition. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 41(6), 695–712.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bortolini, U., & Leonard, L. B. (1991). The speech of phonologically disordered children acquiring Italian. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 5(1), 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bortolini, U., & Leonard, L. B. (2000). Phonology and children with specific language impairment: status of structural constraints in two languages. Journal of Communication Disorders, 33(2), 131–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colombo, L., Deguchi, C., & Boureux, M. (2014). Stress priming and statistical learning in Italian nonword reading: evidence from children. Reading and Writing, 27(5), 923–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, L. W., & Dunn, L. M. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service. [Italian version: Stella, G., Pizzoli, C., & Tressoldi, P. E. (2000) Peabody – test psicoloinguistico. Torino: Omega Edizioni.]Google Scholar
Durlak, J. A. (2009). How to select, calculate, and interpret effect sizes. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 34, 917–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gernsbacher, M. A., Sauer, E. A., Geye, H. M., Schweigert, E. K., & Hill Goldsmith, H. (2008). Infant and toddler oral- and manual-motor skills predict later speech fluency in autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49(1), 43–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Järvinen-Pasley, A., Peppé, S., King-Smith, G., & Heaton, P. (2008). The relationship between form and function level receptive prosodic abilities in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(7), 1328–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
JASP Team (2018). JASP (Version 0.9) [Computer software]. Retrieved from <https://jasp-stats.org/>..>Google Scholar
Kargas, N., López, B., Morris, P., & Reddy, V. (2016). Relations among detection of syllable stress, speech abnormalities, and communicative ability in adults with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(2), 206–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keren-Portnoy, T., Majorano, M., & Vihman, M. M. (2009). From phonetics to phonology: the emergence of first words in Italian. Journal of Child Language, 36(2), 235–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koike, K. J., & Asp, C. W. (1981). Tennessee Test of Rhythm and Intonation Patterns. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46(1), 81–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kopera, H. C., & Grigos, M. I. (2019). Lexical stress in childhood apraxia of speech: acoustic and kinematic findings. International Journal of Speech Language Pathology. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2019.1568571Google ScholarPubMed
Lord, C., Rutter, M., DiLavore, P., Risi, S., Gotham, K., & Bishop, S. (2013 [2012]). Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (trans. Colombi, C., Tancredi, R., Persico, A., & Faggioli, R.) (2nd ed.). Firenze: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Low, L. E., Grabe, E., & Nolan, F. (2000). Quantitative characterizations of speech rhythm: syllable-timing in Singapore English. Language and Speech, 43, 377–401.Google Scholar
Majorano, M., & D'Odorico, L. (2011). The transition into ambient language: a longitudinal study of babbling and first word production of Italian children. First Language, 31(1), 47–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAlpine, A., Plexico, L. W., Plumb, A. M., & Cleary, J. (2014). Prosody in young verbal children with autism spectrum disorder. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science & Disorders, 41, 120–32. Retrieved from <http://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/ASHA/Publications/cicsd/2014S-Prosody-in-Young-Verbal-Children-With-Autism-Spectrum-Disorder.pdf>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Monaghan, P., Arciuli, J., & Seva, N. (2016). Cross-linguistic evidence for probabilistic orthographic cues to lexical stress. In Thomson, J. & Jarmulowicz, L. (Eds.), Linguistic rhythm and literacy (pp. 215–36). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, R., Augustyn, A., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. R. (2005). Perception and production of prosody by speakers with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35(2), 205–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paul, R., Bianchi, N., Augustyn, A., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. R. (2008). Production of syllable stress in speakers with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2(1), 110–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Paul, R., Shriberg, L., McSweeny, J., Cicchetti, D., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. (2005). Relations between prosodic performance and communication and socialization ratings in high functioning speakers with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 861–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peppé, S., McCann, J., Gibbon, F., O'Hare, A., & Rutherford, M. (2007). Receptive and expressive prosodic ability in children with high-functioning autism. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50(4), 1015–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sassenhagen, J., & Alday, P. M. (2016). A common misapplication of statistical inference: nuisance control with null-hypothesis significance tests. Brain and Language, 162, 42–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shriberg, L. D., Paul, R., McSweeny, J. L., Klin, A., Cohen, D. J., & Volkmar, F. R. (2001). Speech and prosody characteristics of adolescents and adults with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44(5), 1097–115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sulpizio, S., & Colombo, L. (2013). Lexical stress, frequency and stress neighborhood effects in the early stages of Italian reading development. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, 2073–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sundberg, J. (1979). Maximum speed of pitch changes in singers and untrained subjects. Journal of Phonetics, 7, 71–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Santen, J. P., Prud'Hommeaux, E. T., Black, L. M., & Mitchell, M. (2010). Computational prosodic markers for autism. Autism, 14(3), 215–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vergis, M. K., Ballard, K. J., Duffy, J. R., McNeil, M. R., Scholl, D., & Layfield, C. (2014). An acoustic measure of lexical stress differentiates aphasia and aphasia plus apraxia of speech after stroke. Aphasiology, 28, 554–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vihman, M. M., DePaolis, R. A., & Davis, B. L. (1998). Is there a ‘trochaic bias’ in early word learning? Evidence from infant production in English and French. Child Development, 69(4), 935–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar