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Saturday, May 9, 2009
Northwest Hall (Chicago Hilton)
10:00 AM
Background: Conversation is an area of substantial difficulty for individuals with high functioning autism(HFA), although they have relatively unimpaired formal language. This may stem from the unstructured nature of face-to-face conversation, as well as its demands for the coordination of multiple modes of communication (e.g. eye gaze, prosody or intonation) along with speech. Previous studies investigated the social visual attention of adults and adolescents with HFA by tracking their eye movements as they watched social scenes unfold on video (Klinetal,2002; Norburyetal.,2008). These studies found reduced attention to actor’s eyes in HFA, relative to matched comparison groups. The prosody or intonation patterns of individuals with autism have also been quantified, by conducting acoustic analyses on narratives produced by children and adolescents with autism (Diehletal.,in press). The pitch variation of HFA participants was found to be higher than that of comparisons, reflecting a sing-songy rather than monotone intonation.
Objectives: We carried out quantitative analyses of two modes of communication during face-to-face conversation, as they naturally occur in combination with verbal exchanges: eye gaze and prosody. This study aimed to increase our understanding of differences in both social visual attention and prosody in HFA, by sampling these behaviours “in vivo,” as well as our understanding of the multiple modes involved in this fundamental forum of language use. Additionally, we compared these behaviours across two topics of conversation: generic vs. motivated.
Methods: Participants were children with HFA and typically-developing comparisons (TYP) matched on age (9 to 13 years), gender, language level, and PIQ. They participated in face-to-face conversations with an adult partner, on both a generic topic (siblings, pets), and a motivated topic (circumscribed interest or favourite hobby). We used eye-tracking technology to measure participants’ visual attention to their partner’s Face and Non-Partner regions (table, elsewhere) (n = 12 HFA, 11 TYP). For the prosody analysis audio files were extracted from video of the conversation, and 10 second samples were analyzed using PRAAT software (Boersma & Weenink, 2005) to measure pitch variation (n = 15 HFA, 13 TYP).
Results: Visual attention – There was a non-significant trend for participants with HFA to look less to their partner’s Face overall than comparisons. However, visual attention to the Face was negatively correlated to autism severity (as provided by total ADOS-3 scores, r = -.74); participants with more severe autism symptoms looked less at their partner’s face. Both the HFA and TYP groups looked significantly more to their partner’s Face during the motivated topic of conversation than during the generic topic.
Prosody -- Pitch variation was significantly higher in the HFA than the TYP group, corroborating the findings of Diehletal.(in press).
Conclusions: Multiple modes of communication contribute to differences observed during face-to-face conversation. We found prosodic differences between the HFA and comparison groups, and a trend for differences in visual attention, along with a strong correlation between autism severity and decreased attention to the partner’s face. Interestingly, HFA participants, like comparisons, looked more at their partner’s face during motivated, as opposed to generic, topics of conversation.
Objectives: We carried out quantitative analyses of two modes of communication during face-to-face conversation, as they naturally occur in combination with verbal exchanges: eye gaze and prosody. This study aimed to increase our understanding of differences in both social visual attention and prosody in HFA, by sampling these behaviours “in vivo,” as well as our understanding of the multiple modes involved in this fundamental forum of language use. Additionally, we compared these behaviours across two topics of conversation: generic vs. motivated.
Methods: Participants were children with HFA and typically-developing comparisons (TYP) matched on age (9 to 13 years), gender, language level, and PIQ. They participated in face-to-face conversations with an adult partner, on both a generic topic (siblings, pets), and a motivated topic (circumscribed interest or favourite hobby). We used eye-tracking technology to measure participants’ visual attention to their partner’s Face and Non-Partner regions (table, elsewhere) (n = 12 HFA, 11 TYP). For the prosody analysis audio files were extracted from video of the conversation, and 10 second samples were analyzed using PRAAT software (Boersma & Weenink, 2005) to measure pitch variation (n = 15 HFA, 13 TYP).
Results: Visual attention – There was a non-significant trend for participants with HFA to look less to their partner’s Face overall than comparisons. However, visual attention to the Face was negatively correlated to autism severity (as provided by total ADOS-3 scores, r = -.74); participants with more severe autism symptoms looked less at their partner’s face. Both the HFA and TYP groups looked significantly more to their partner’s Face during the motivated topic of conversation than during the generic topic.
Prosody -- Pitch variation was significantly higher in the HFA than the TYP group, corroborating the findings of Diehletal.(in press).
Conclusions: Multiple modes of communication contribute to differences observed during face-to-face conversation. We found prosodic differences between the HFA and comparison groups, and a trend for differences in visual attention, along with a strong correlation between autism severity and decreased attention to the partner’s face. Interestingly, HFA participants, like comparisons, looked more at their partner’s face during motivated, as opposed to generic, topics of conversation.