Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Acoustic And Perceptual Measurements Of Prosody Production On The Profiling Elements Of Prosodic Systems In Children By Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Joshua John Diehl, Rhea Paul

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Prosody production atypicalities are a feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but behavioral measures of performance have failed to provide detail on the properties of these deficits. We used acoustic measures of prosody to compare children with ASDs to age-matched groups with learning disabilities and typically developing peers. Overall, the group with ASD had longer utterance durations on multiple subtests on a test of prosodic abilities, and both the ASD and learning disabilities groups had higher pitch ranges and pitch variance than the typically developing group on one subtest. Acoustic differences were present even when the prosody was used correctly.These …

Neural Underpinnings Of Prosody In Autism, Inge-Marie Eigsti, Jillian Schuh, Einar Mencl, Robert T. Schultz, Rhea Paul

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

This study examines the processing of prosodic cues to linguistic structure and to affect, drawing on fMRI and behavioral data from 16 high-functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 11 typically developing controls. Stimuli were carefully matched on pitch, intensity, and duration, while varying systematically in conditions of affective prosody (angry versus neutral speech) and grammatical prosody (questions versus statement). To avoid conscious attention to prosody, which normalizes responses in young people with ASD, the implicit comprehension task directed attention to semantic aspects of the stimuli. Results showed that when perceiving prosodic cues, both affective and grammatical, activation of …

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes: Vocal Production In Infant Siblings Of Children With Asd, Rhea Paul, Yael Fuerst, Gordon Ramsay, Kasia Chawarska, Ami Klin

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Background: Younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are at higher risk for acquiring these disorders than the general population. Language development is usually delayed in children with ASD. The present study examines the development of pre-speech vocal behavior in infants at risk for ASD due to the presence of an older sibling with the disorder. Methods: Infants at high risk (HR) for ASD and those at low risk, without a diagnosed sibling (LR), were seen at 6, 9, and 12 months as part of a larger prospective study of risk for ASD in infant siblings. Standard clinical …

Cognitive And Psychiatric Predictors To Psychosis In Velocardiofacial Syndrome: A 3-Year Follow-Up Study, Kevin M. Antshel, Robert J. Shprintzen, Wanda Fremont, Anne Marie Higgins, Stephen V. Faraone, Wendy R. Kates

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Objective: To predict prodromal psychosis in adolescents with velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS). Method: 70 youth with VCFS, 27 siblings of youth with VCFS and 25 community controls were followed from childhood (Mean age = 11.8 years) into mid-adolescence (mean age 15.0 years). Psychological tests measuring intelligence, academic achievement, learning/memory, attention and executive functioning as well as measures of parent and clinician ratings of child psychiatric functioning were completed at both time point. Results: Major depressive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder diagnoses increased in the VCFS sample. With very low false positive rates, the best predictor of adolescent prodromal …

Academic Medicine As A Bridge To Peace: Building Arab And Israeli Cooperation, Abi Sriharan, Ziad Abdeen, Dennis Bojrab, Shurkri David, Ziad Elnasser, Tim Patterson, Robert J. Shprintzen, Harvey Skinner, Yehudah Roth, Arnold Noyek

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Can you imagine Canadian, Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian medical students singing, volunteering, and working together to develop programs to address issues related to global pediatric emergency medicine? Such a program was first held in Toronto in 2003 and continues annually. Can you imagine Canadians, Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians jointly teaching and developing solutions, via video teleconference, to address behavioral neurological problems affecting elderly populations? Such an initiative began in 2006 and continues to expand today. Can you imagine senior Jordanian and Israeli ear surgeons operating together, successfully carrying out pioneering cochlear implant surgery on deaf infants, on Jordanian national television? …

Autism In A 15-Month-Old Child, Ami Klin, Katarzyna Chawarska, Rhea Paul, Emily Rubin, L. Weisner, Fred Volkmar

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Autism is a developmental disorder marked by severe deficits in reciprocal social interaction, communication, and imagination as well as repetitive and restricted patterns of interests and behavior. Klin et al describe the findings of an interdisciplinary developmental disabilities evaluation of a 15-month-old girl with autism.