Non-autistic persons modulate their speech rhythm while talking to autistic individuals

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Neuroscience
• Speech Communication

Background:

• Understanding how neurotypical (NT) individuals adapt their speech patterns when communicating with autistic (AUT) individuals is crucial for improving social interactions.
• Previous research has not fully elucidated the specific phonological characteristics and dynamic interactions modulated during such conversations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the frequency power of prosodic, syllabic, and phonetic rhythms in speech between autistic and neurotypical individuals.
• To examine the dynamic interactions among these speech rhythms during conversations involving autistic and neurotypical participants.

Main Methods:

• Acoustic analysis of speech samples from eight autistic adults and eight neurotypical adults interacting with neurotypical questioners.
• Quantification of frequency power in prosodic, syllabic, and phonetic rhythms.
• Assessment of dynamic interactions between different phonological rhythm bands.

Main Results:

• Speech produced by autistic individuals and speech directed at them exhibited significantly weaker prosody and inter-rhythm interactions compared to neurotypical speech and speech directed at neurotypicals.
• Autistic speech demonstrated weaker dynamic processing from higher to lower phonological bands (e.g., prosody to syllable).
• A correlation was observed where weaker prosodic frequency power in respondents (both autistic and neurotypical) corresponded to weaker prosodic frequency power in neurotypical questioners, suggesting spontaneous imitation.

Conclusions:

• Neurotypical individuals appear to spontaneously modulate their speech rhythms, potentially imitating their autistic or neurotypical interlocutors.
• The findings suggest that the phonological characteristics of a speaker can influence those of their conversational partner, even in interactions involving autistic individuals.