Acoustic analysis of intonational variation of individuals with Asperger Syndrome

• Grant number: 13/00381-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2013
• End date: April 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Andréa Regina Nunes Misquiatti
• Grantee: Ana Gabriela Olivati
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Asperger Syndrome (AS) differs from classic autism to include impairments in social interaction and restricted patterns of interest, with no significant delay in language acquisition nor in cognitive skills and self-care. However, although individuals with AS do not show significant abnormalities of speech, there are at least three aspects of communication patterns of these individuals that are of clinical interest: poor prosody, rate of speech, and poor modulation of unusual volume. The goal of this research is to analyze the elements of prosodic speech of individuals diagnosed with SA and compare them with control group subjects, through an acoustic analysis. Participate in this study 20 subjects of both genders covering the age range 10-28 years, diagnosed with Asperger syndrome by psychiatrists and 20 subjects matched for gender and age, which do not report speech, totaling 40 subjects. Is used to scale autistic traits - ATA in order to better characterize the sample of participants with SA. Recordings of talks will be held for all participating subjects, using as a guide the prosody of the ALiB questionnaire, which consists of 11 questions concerning the nature of interrogative sentences, and mandatory affirmative. Data will be analyzed using the software PRAAT and sent for statistical processing, and should be an analysis of the correlation curve intonational subjects with SA with the curve of the control group subjects and a comparison of each of the three elements evaluated prosodic (fundamental frequency, duration, and intensity) using the Mann-Whitney test. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

ANA GABRIELA OLIVATI; FRANCISCO BAPTISTA ASSUMPÇÃO JUNIOR; ANDRÉA REGINA NUNES MISQUIATTI. Análise acústica do padrão entoacional da fala de indivíduos com Transtorno do Espectro Autista. CoDAS, v. 29, n. 2, 2017-04-10. (13/00381-4)