Remote Microphone Systems for Autistic and Nonautistic Youth: Effects on Audiovisual Task Engagement.

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Developmental Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Remote microphone (RM) systems have shown promise in improving listening performance in noisy environments for autistic youth.
• The hypothesis that RM systems enhance engagement in autistic individuals requires further investigation.
• Understanding behavioral responses during listening tasks is crucial for assessing the efficacy of assistive listening devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of RM systems on task engagement and protesting behaviors in autistic and nonautistic youth.
• To determine if RM systems reduce verbal, stimulus-specific protesting during listening-in-noise tasks.
• To explore potential predictors and moderators of engagement and protesting behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Utilized extant data from 56 youth (32 autistic, 24 nonautistic) performing listening-in-noise tasks with and without an RM system.
• Employed behavioral coding of video recordings to quantify task engagement and verbal, stimulus-specific protesting.
• Analyzed the influence of participant characteristics (age, autism features, language ability, audiovisual integration) on behavioral outcomes.

Main Results:

• Participants exhibited high overall engagement (over 90% of intervals) with no significant differences between groups or RM system use.
• RM system use significantly reduced verbal, stimulus-specific protesting (0.04% with RM vs. 0.2% without RM).
• Language ability and nonverbal IQ predicted increased engagement without RM; autism features and audiovisual processing predicted engagement with RM.

Conclusions:

• RM system use effectively reduces verbal, stimulus-specific protesting in youth during challenging listening conditions.
• Reduced protesting suggests RM systems mitigate difficulties associated with listening in noise, potentially by improving engagement.
• Findings provide further empirical support for the use of RM systems in both autistic and nonautistic youth.