Perceptual and acoustic analysis of typical and atypical prosody in Autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

This study made use of perceptual and acoustic analysis to compare the prosody of 15 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and five neurotypical (NT) controls in terms of pitch, pitch variation, rhythm, and speech rate. In terms of the acoustic measures, the difference between the two groups was non-significant. Cluster analyses based on experts’ perceptual ratings were able to classify the speakers into subgroups based on the four parameters. The acoustic measures were compared among the perceptual-based clusters and significant differences were found for the parameters of pitch, pitch variation, and speech rate. The results attested that prosody is multifaceted and consists of multiple interrelated parameters. It highlighted the heterogeneous nature of the ASD population and the great variety of prosodic profiles they display.