Prosodic Perception and Production in Autism: A Scoping Review
Abstract
Background: Prosody is the set of suprasegmental elements of language, such as intonation, rhythm, and accent, which play a crucial role in emotional and pragmatic communication.
Methods: We conducted a scoping review to explore prosodic perception and production in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This review followed the PRISMA guidelines and selected articles published between 2014 and 2024 through academic databases such as PsycINFO, Scopus, and the Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection. We included 14 studies with 440 participants with ASD and 399 neurotypical participants.
Results: The results show considerable heterogeneity: some studies suggest that autistic individuals have difficulty recognizing emotions from prosody, while others show no significant differences compared to neurotypicals. There are also differences in prosodic production, with ASD individuals tending to modulate their voice in atypical ways. The variability of the results could be due to methodological differences, the age of the participants, and the type of stimuli used.
Conclusions: This variability highlights the need for future studies using more standardized protocols to clarify the role of prosody in ASD and its impact on social communication. Clinical implications suggest that professionals should consider prosodic difficulties in assessment and intervention planning, with targeted support to improve social communicative outcomes in individuals with autism.
Keywords: ASD; Prosody; Emotional Communication; Voice modulation; Speech Perception
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Ben-David, B. M., Ben-Itzchak, E., Zukerman, G., Yahav, G., & Icht, M. (2020). The perception of emotions in spoken language in undergraduates with high functioning autism spectrum disorder: A preserved social skill. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 741-756. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04297-2
Bone, D., Black, M. P., Ramakrishna, A., Grossman, R. B., & Narayanan, S. S. (2015, September). Acoustic-prosodic correlates of 'awkward' prosody in story retellings from adolescents with autism. In Interspeech (pp. 1616-1620). DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2015-37
Chiew, J., Kjelgaard, M., Chiew, J., & Kjelgaard, M. (2017). The perception of affective prosody in children with autism spectrum disorders and typical peers. Clinical Archives of Communication Disorders, 2(2), 128-141. https://doi.org/10.21849/cacd.2017.00157
Cowen, A. S., Elfenbein, H. A., Laukka, P., & Keltner, D. (2019). Mapping 24 emotions conveyed by brief human vocalization. American Psychologist, 74(6), 698. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000399
Cutler, A., & Clifton, C. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition
Diehl, J. J., Friedberg, C., Paul, R., & Snedeker, J. (2015). The use of prosody during syntactic processing in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Development and Psychopathology, 27(3), 867-884. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579414000741
Fay, W. H., & Schuler, A. L. (1980). Emerging language in autistic children.
Fox Tree, J. E., & Meijer, P. J. (2000). Untrained speakers' use of prosody in syntactic disambiguation and listeners' interpretations. Psychological Research, 63(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00008163
Fusaroli, R., Lambrechts, A., Bang, D., Bowler, D. M., & Gaigg, S. B. (2017). Is voice a marker for Autism spectrum disorder? A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Autism Research, 10(3), 384-407. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1678
Gebauer, L., Skewes, J., Hørlyck, L., & Vuust, P. (2014). Atypical perception of affective prosody in Autism Spectrum Disorder. NeuroImage: Clinical, 6, 370-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2014.08.025
Gibson, M. T., Schmidt-Kassow, M., & Paulmann, S. (2023). How neurotypical listeners recognize emotions expressed through vocal cues by speakers with high-functioning autism. PLOS ONE, 18(10), e0293233. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293233
Globerson, E., Amir, N., Kishon‐Rabin, L., & Golan, O. (2015). Prosody recognition in adults with high‐functioning autism spectrum disorders: From psychoacoustics to cognition. Autism Research, 8(2), 153-163.
Golan, O., Baron-Cohen, S., Hill, J. J., & Rutherford, M. (2007). The ‘Reading the Mind in the Voice’ test-revised: a study of complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1096-1106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0252-5
Grossman, R. B., Bemis, R. H., Skwerer, D. P., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2010). Lexical and affective prosody in children with high-functioning autism. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2009/08-0127)
Grossman, R. B., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2012). “Who said that?” Matching of low-and high-intensity emotional prosody to facial expressions by adolescents with ASD. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 2546-2557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1511-2
Hoffmann, J., Travers-Podmaniczky, G., Pelzl, M. A., Brück, C., Jacob, H., Hölz, L., ... & Wildgruber, D. (2023). Impairments in recognition of emotional facial expressions, affective prosody, and multisensory facilitation of response time in high-functioning autism. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1151665. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1151665
Hubbard, D. J., Faso, D. J., Assmann, P. F., & Sasson, N. J. (2017). Production and perception of emotional prosody by adults with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 10(12), 1991-2001. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1847
Hübscher, I., & Prieto, P. (2019). Gestural and prosodic development act as sister systems and jointly pave the way for children’s sociopragmatic development. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1259. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01259
Leung, F. Y., Stojanovik, V., Micai, M., Jiang, C., & Liu, F. (2023). Emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder across age groups: A cross‐sectional investigation of various visual and auditory communicative domains. Autism Research, 16(4), 783-801. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2896
Lui, M., Lau, G. K. B., Han, Y. M. Y., Yuen, K. C. P., & Sommer, W. (2023). Strong relationship between rapid auditory processing and affective prosody recognition among adults with high autistic traits. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53(8), 3180-3193. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05600-4
Lyons, M., Schoen Simmons, E., & Paul, R. (2014). Prosodic development in middle childhood and adolescence in high‐functioning autism. Autism Research, 7(2), 181- 196. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1355
Martin, I., & McDonald, S. (2004). An exploration of causes of non-literal language problems in individuals with Asperger syndrome. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 34, 311-328. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JADD.0000029553.52889.15
Martzoukou, M., Papadopoulou, D., & Kosmidis, M. H. (2017). The comprehension of syntactic and affective prosody by adults with autism spectrum disorder without accompanying cognitive deficits. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46, 1573- 1595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9500-4
Maslennikova, A. V., Portnova, G. V., & Martynova, O. V. (2022). Brain oscillatory patterns of affective prosody perception in children with autism spectrum disorder. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 96, 101993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2022.101993
Mastropieri, D., & Turkewitz, G. (1999). Prenatal experience and neonatal responsiveness to vocal expressions of emotion. Developmental Psychobiology: The Journal of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, 35(3), 204-214. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2302(199911)35:3<204::AID-DEV5>3.0.CO;2-V
McDonald, S., Togher, L., Tate, R., Randall, R., English, T., & Gowland, A. (2013). A randomised controlled trial evaluating a brief intervention for deficits in recognising emotional prosody following severe ABI. Neuropsychological rehabilitation, 23(2), 267-286. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2012.751340
Mesibov, G. B. (1992). Treatment issues with high-functioning adolescents and adults with autism. In E. Schopler & G. B. Mesibov (Eds.), High-Functioning individuals with autism (pp. 143–155). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2456-8_8
Moher, D., Shamseer, L., Clarke, M., Ghersi, D., Liberati, A., Petticrew, M., ... & Prisma-P Group. (2015). Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta- analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Systematic reviews, 4, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-4-1
Patel, S. P., Nayar, K., Martin, G. E., Franich, K., Crawford, S., Diehl, J. J., & Losh, M. (2020). An acoustic characterization of prosodic differences in autism spectrum disorder and first-degree relatives. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 3032-3045. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04392-9
Paul, R., Augustyn, A., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. R. (2005). Perception and production of prosody by speakers with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 35, 205-220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-004-1999-1
Peppé, S., Cleland, J., Gibbon, F., O’Hare, A., & Castilla, P. M. (2011). Expressive prosody in children with autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 24(1), 41-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2010.07.005
Pfanner, L., Tancredi, R., & Marcheschi, M. (2008). Comunicazione e linguaggio nei disturbi pervasivi dello sviluppo. Giornale di Neuropsichiatria dell'Età Evolutiva , 28, 59-74.
Prieto, P., Estrella, A., Thorson, J., & Vanrell, M. D. M. (2012). Is prosodic development correlated with grammatical and lexical development? Evidence from emerging intonation in Catalan and Spanish. Journal of Child Language, 39(2), 221-257. https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500091100002X
Schelinski, S., & von Kriegstein, K. (2019). The relation between vocal pitch and vocal
Ben-David, B. M., Ben-Itzchak, E., Zukerman, G., Yahav, G., & Icht, M. (2020). The perception of emotions in spoken language in undergraduates with high functioning autism spectrum disorder: A preserved social skill. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 741-756. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04297-2
Bone, D., Black, M. P., Ramakrishna, A., Grossman, R. B., & Narayanan, S. S. (2015, September). Acoustic-prosodic correlates of 'awkward' prosody in story retellings from adolescents with autism. In Interspeech (pp. 1616-1620). DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2015-37
Chiew, J., Kjelgaard, M., Chiew, J., & Kjelgaard, M. (2017). The perception of affective prosody in children with autism spectrum disorders and typical peers. Clinical Archives of Communication Disorders, 2(2), 128-141. https://doi.org/10.21849/cacd.2017.00157
Cowen, A. S., Elfenbein, H. A., Laukka, P., & Keltner, D. (2019). Mapping 24 emotions conveyed by brief human vocalization. American Psychologist, 74(6), 698. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000399
Cutler, A., & Clifton, C. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition
Diehl, J. J., Friedberg, C., Paul, R., & Snedeker, J. (2015). The use of prosody during syntactic processing in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Development and Psychopathology, 27(3), 867-884. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579414000741
Fay, W. H., & Schuler, A. L. (1980). Emerging language in autistic children.
Fox Tree, J. E., & Meijer, P. J. (2000). Untrained speakers' use of prosody in syntactic disambiguation and listeners' interpretations. Psychological Research, 63(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00008163
Fusaroli, R., Lambrechts, A., Bang, D., Bowler, D. M., & Gaigg, S. B. (2017). Is voice a marker for Autism spectrum disorder? A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Autism Research, 10(3), 384-407. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1678
Gebauer, L., Skewes, J., Hørlyck, L., & Vuust, P. (2014). Atypical perception of affective prosody in Autism Spectrum Disorder. NeuroImage: Clinical, 6, 370-378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2014.08.025
Gibson, M. T., Schmidt-Kassow, M., & Paulmann, S. (2023). How neurotypical listeners recognize emotions expressed through vocal cues by speakers with high-functioning autism. PLOS ONE, 18(10), e0293233. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293233
Globerson, E., Amir, N., Kishon‐Rabin, L., & Golan, O. (2015). Prosody recognition in adults with high‐functioning autism spectrum disorders: From psychoacoustics to cognition. Autism Research, 8(2), 153-163.
Golan, O., Baron-Cohen, S., Hill, J. J., & Rutherford, M. (2007). The ‘Reading the Mind in the Voice’ test-revised: a study of complex emotion recognition in adults with and without autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1096-1106. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0252-5
Grossman, R. B., Bemis, R. H., Skwerer, D. P., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2010). Lexical and affective prosody in children with high-functioning autism. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2009/08-0127)
Grossman, R. B., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2012). “Who said that?” Matching of low-and high-intensity emotional prosody to facial expressions by adolescents with ASD. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 2546-2557. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1511-2
Hoffmann, J., Travers-Podmaniczky, G., Pelzl, M. A., Brück, C., Jacob, H., Hölz, L., ... & Wildgruber, D. (2023). Impairments in recognition of emotional facial expressions, affective prosody, and multisensory facilitation of response time in high-functioning autism. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1151665. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1151665
Hubbard, D. J., Faso, D. J., Assmann, P. F., & Sasson, N. J. (2017). Production and perception of emotional prosody by adults with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Research, 10(12), 1991-2001. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1847
Hübscher, I., & Prieto, P. (2019). Gestural and prosodic development act as sister systems and jointly pave the way for children’s sociopragmatic development. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1259. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01259
Leung, F. Y., Stojanovik, V., Micai, M., Jiang, C., & Liu, F. (2023). Emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder across age groups: A cross‐sectional investigation of various visual and auditory communicative domains. Autism Research, 16(4), 783-801. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2896
Lui, M., Lau, G. K. B., Han, Y. M. Y., Yuen, K. C. P., & Sommer, W. (2023). Strong relationship between rapid auditory processing and affective prosody recognition among adults with high autistic traits. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53(8), 3180-3193. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05600-4
Lyons, M., Schoen Simmons, E., & Paul, R. (2014). Prosodic development in middle childhood and adolescence in high‐functioning autism. Autism Research, 7(2), 181- 196. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1355
Martin, I., & McDonald, S. (2004). An exploration of causes of non-literal language problems in individuals with Asperger syndrome. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 34, 311-328. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JADD.0000029553.52889.15
Martzoukou, M., Papadopoulou, D., & Kosmidis, M. H. (2017). The comprehension of syntactic and affective prosody by adults with autism spectrum disorder without accompanying cognitive deficits. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46, 1573- 1595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-017-9500-4
Maslennikova, A. V., Portnova, G. V., & Martynova, O. V. (2022). Brain oscillatory patterns of affective prosody perception in children with autism spectrum disorder. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 96, 101993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2022.101993
Mastropieri, D., & Turkewitz, G. (1999). Prenatal experience and neonatal responsiveness to vocal expressions of emotion. Developmental Psychobiology: The Journal of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology, 35(3), 204-214. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1098-2302(199911)35:3<204::AID-DEV5>3.0.CO;2-V
McDonald, S., Togher, L., Tate, R., Randall, R., English, T., & Gowland, A. (2013). A randomised controlled trial evaluating a brief intervention for deficits in recognising emotional prosody following severe ABI. Neuropsychological rehabilitation, 23(2), 267-286. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2012.751340
Mesibov, G. B. (1992). Treatment issues with high-functioning adolescents and adults with autism. In E. Schopler & G. B. Mesibov (Eds.), High-Functioning individuals with autism (pp. 143–155). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2456-8_8
Moher, D., Shamseer, L., Clarke, M., Ghersi, D., Liberati, A., Petticrew, M., ... & Prisma-P Group. (2015). Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta- analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement. Systematic reviews, 4, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-4-1
Patel, S. P., Nayar, K., Martin, G. E., Franich, K., Crawford, S., Diehl, J. J., & Losh, M. (2020). An acoustic characterization of prosodic differences in autism spectrum disorder and first-degree relatives. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50, 3032-3045. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04392-9
Paul, R., Augustyn, A., Klin, A., & Volkmar, F. R. (2005). Perception and production of prosody by speakers with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 35, 205-220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-004-1999-1
Peppé, S., Cleland, J., Gibbon, F., O’Hare, A., & Castilla, P. M. (2011). Expressive prosody in children with autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 24(1), 41-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2010.07.005
Pfanner, L., Tancredi, R., & Marcheschi, M. (2008). Comunicazione e linguaggio nei disturbi pervasivi dello sviluppo. Giornale di Neuropsichiatria dell'Età Evolutiva , 28, 59-74.
Prieto, P., Estrella, A., Thorson, J., & Vanrell, M. D. M. (2012). Is prosodic development correlated with grammatical and lexical development? Evidence from emerging intonation in Catalan and Spanish. Journal of Child Language, 39(2), 221-257. https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500091100002X
Schelinski, S., & von Kriegstein, K. (2019). The relation between vocal pitch and vocal emotion recognition abilities in people with autism spectrum disorder and typical development. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 49, 68-82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3681-z
Teresa Bruno, M., Russo, S., & Valenza, E. (2022). Abilità prosodiche e competenze sociopragmatiche nel Disturbo dello Spettro Autistico. Una rassegna sul ruolo delle atipicità attentive. Psicologia clinica dello sviluppo, 26(2), 227-256. DOI: 10.1449/103812
Wang, J. E., & Tsao, F. M. (2015). Emotional prosody perception and its association with pragmatic language in school-aged children with high-function autism. Research in developmental disabilities, 37, 162-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2014.11.013
Yankowitz, L. D., Schultz, R. T., & Parish-Morris, J. (2019). Pre-and paralinguistic vocal production in ASD: Birth through school age. Current psychiatry reports, 21, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-019-1113-1
recognition abilities in people with autism spectrum disorder and typical development. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 49, 68-82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3681-z
Teresa Bruno, M., Russo, S., & Valenza, E. (2022). Abilità prosodiche e competenze sociopragmatiche nel Disturbo dello Spettro Autistico. Una rassegna sul ruolo delle atipicità attentive. Psicologia clinica dello sviluppo, 26(2), 227-256. DOI: 10.1449/103812
Wang, J. E., & Tsao, F. M. (2015). Emotional prosody perception and its association with pragmatic language in school-aged children with high-function autism. Research in developmental disabilities, 37, 162-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2014.11.013
Yankowitz, L. D., Schultz, R. T., & Parish-Morris, J. (2019). Pre-and paralinguistic vocal production in ASD: Birth through school age. Current psychiatry reports, 21, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-019-1113-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13129/2612-4033/0110-4802
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.