Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Brief Report: Arrested Development of Audiovisual Speech Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorders

  • Brief Report
  • Published:
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Atypical communicative abilities are a core marker of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A number of studies have shown that, in addition to auditory comprehension differences, individuals with autism frequently show atypical responses to audiovisual speech, suggesting a multisensory contribution to these communicative differences from their typically developing peers. To shed light on possible differences in the maturation of audiovisual speech integration, we tested younger (ages 6–12) and older (ages 13–18) children with and without ASD on a task indexing such multisensory integration. To do this, we used the McGurk effect, in which the pairing of incongruent auditory and visual speech tokens typically results in the perception of a fused percept distinct from the auditory and visual signals, indicative of active integration of the two channels conveying speech information. Whereas little difference was seen in audiovisual speech processing (i.e., reports of McGurk fusion) between the younger ASD and TD groups, there was a significant difference at the older ages. While TD controls exhibited an increased rate of fusion (i.e., integration) with age, children with ASD failed to show this increase. These data suggest arrested development of audiovisual speech integration in ASD. The results are discussed in light of the extant literature and necessary next steps in research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

References

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-IV-TR. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association, & American Psychiatric Association. DSM-5 Task Force. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5 (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.

  • Arnold, P., & Hill, F. (2001). Bisensory augmentation: A speech reading advantage when speech is clearly audible and intact. British Journal of Psychology, 92(2), 339–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baggaley, A. R. (1988). The relative usefulness of multiple measures for differentiating among groups of people. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 48, 89–92.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bebko, J. M., Weiss, J. A., Demark, J. L., & Gomez, P. (2006). Discrimination of temporal synchrony in intermodal events by children with autism and children with developmental disabilities without autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47(1), 88–98.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Billstedt, E., Gillberg, I. C., & Gillberg, C. (2007). Autism in adults: Symptom patterns and early childhood predictors. Use of the DISCO in a community sample followed from childhood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(11), 1102–1110.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Blake, R., Turner, L. M., Smoski, M. J., Pozdol, S. L., & Stone, W. L. (2003). Visual recognition of biological motion is impaired in children with autism. Psychological Science, 14(2), 151–157.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boddaert, N., Chabane, N., Gervais, H., Good, C. D., Bourgeois, M., Plumet, M. H., et al. (2004). Superior temporal sulcus anatomical abnormalities in childhood autism: A voxel-based morphometry MRI study. Neuroimage, 23(1), 364–369.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boddaert, N., & Zilbovicius, M. (2002). Functional neuroimaging and childhood autism. Pediatric Radiology, 32(1), 1–7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brainard, D. H. (1997). The psychophysics toolbox. Spatial Vision, 10(4), 433–436.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Calvert, G. A., Brammer, M. J., & Iversen, S. D. (1998). Crossmodal identification. Trends in cognitive sciences, 2(7), 247–253.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, G., Meltzoff, A. N., Osterling, J., Rinaldi, J., & Brown, E. (1998). Children with autism fail to orient to naturally occurring social stimuli. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 28(6), 479–485.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, G., Toth, K., Abbott, R., Osterling, J., Munson, J., Estes, A., et al. (2004). Early social attention impairments in autism: Social orienting, joint attention, and attention to distress. Developmental Psychology, 40(2), 271–283.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, G., Webb, S. J., & McPartland, J. (2005). Understanding the nature of face processing impairment in autism: Insights from behavioral and electrophysiological studies. Developmental Neuropsychology, 27(3), 403–424.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • de Gelder, B., Vroomen, J., & Van der Heide, L. (1991). Face recognition and lip-reading in autism. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 3(1), 69–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foss-Feig, J. H., Kwakye, L. D., Cascio, C. J., Burnette, C. P., Kadivar, H., Stone, W. L., et al. (2010). An extended multisensory temporal binding window in autism spectrum disorders. Experimental Brain Research, 203(2), 381–389.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Frick, R. W. (1995). Accepting the null hypothesis. Memory & Cognition, 23(1), 132–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hockley, W. E. (1994). Reflections of the mirror effect for item and associative recognition. Memory & Cognition, 22(6), 713–722.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Iarocci, G., & McDonald, J. (2006). Sensory integration and the perceptual experience of persons with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1), 77–90.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Iarocci, G., Rombough, A., Yager, J., Weeks, D. J., & Chua, R. (2010). Visual influences on speech perception in children with autism. Autism, 14(4), 305–320.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Irwin, J. R., Tornatore, L. A., Brancazio, L., & Whalen, D. H. (2011a). Can children with autism spectrum disorders “hear” a speaking face? Child Development, 82(5), 1397–1403.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Irwin, J. R., Tornatore, L. A., Brancazio, L., & Whalen, D. H. (2011b). Can children with autism spectrum disorders “hear” a speaking face? Child Development, 82(5), 1397–1403.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, J. A., & Munhall, K. G. (1997). Effects of separating auditory and visual sources on audiovisual integration of speech. Canadian Acoustics, 25(4), 13–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuhl, P. (2004). Early language acquisition: Cracking the speech code. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5(11), 831–843.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhl, P. (2007). Is speech learning ‘gated’ by the social brain? Developmental Science, 10(1), 110–120.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhl, P., Coffey-Corina, S., Padden, D., & Dawson, G. (2005). Links between social and linguistic processing of speech in preschool children with autism: Behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Developmental Science, 8(1), F1–F12.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kwakye, L. D., Foss-Feig, J. H., Cascio, C. J., Stone, W. L., & Wallace, M. T. (2011). Altered auditory and multisensory temporal processing in autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 4, 129.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lord, C., Risi, S., Lambrecht, L., Cook, E. H, Jr, Leventhal, B. L., DiLavore, P. C., et al. (2000). The autism diagnostic observation schedule-generic: A standard measure of social and communication deficits associated with the spectrum of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30(3), 205–223.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lord, C., Rutter, M., & Le Couteur, A. (1994). Autism diagnostic interview-revised: A revised version of a diagnostic interview for caregivers of individuals with possible pervasive developmental disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 24(5), 659–685.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Macdonald, J., & McGurk, H. (1978). Visual influences on speech perception processes. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 24(3), 253–257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massaro, D. (1984). Children’s perception of visual and auditory speech. Child Development, 55(5), 1777–1788.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Massaro, D. (1998). Perceiving talking faces: From speech perception to a behavioral principle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massaro, D. W., & Cohen, M. M. (1995). Perceiving talking faces. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4(4), 104–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massaro, D., Cohen, M., & Smeele, P. (1996). Perception of asynchronous and conflicting visual and auditory speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 100(3), 1777–1786.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McGurk, H., & MacDonald, J. (1976). Hearing lips and seeing voices. Nature, 264(5588), 746–748.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mervis, C. B., & Klein-Tasman, B. P. (2004). Methodological issues in group-matching designs: Alpha levels for control variable comparisons and measurement characteristics of control and target variables. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34(1), 7–17.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Middelweerd, M. J., & Plomp, R. (1987). The effect of speech reading on the speech-reception threshold of sentences in noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 82(6), 2145–2147.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mongillo, E., Irwin, J., Whalen, D., Klaiman, C., Carter, A., & Schultz, R. (2008a). Audiovisual processing in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(7), 1349–1358.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mongillo, E. A., Irwin, J. R., Whalen, D. H., Klaiman, C., Carter, A. S., & Schultz, R. T. (2008b). Audiovisual processing in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(7), 1349–1358.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Munhall, K., Gribble, P., Sacco, L., & Ward, M. (1996). Temporal constraints on the McGurk effect. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 58(3), 351–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pelli, D. G. (1997). The VideoToolbox software for visual psychophysics: Transforming numbers into movies. Spatial Vision, 10(4), 437–442.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pelphrey, K. A., & Carter, E. J. (2008a). Brain mechanisms for social perception: Lessons from autism and typical development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1145, 283–299.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pelphrey, K. A., & Carter, E. J. (2008b). Charting the typical and atypical development of the social brain. Development and Psychopathology, 20(4), 1081–1102.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pierce, K., & Redcay, E. (2008). Fusiform function in children with an autism spectrum disorder is a matter of “who”. Biological Psychiatry, 64(7), 552–560.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Powers, A. R, 3rd, Hevey, M. A., & Wallace, M. T. (2012). Neural correlates of multisensory perceptual learning. The Journal of Neuroscience, 32(18), 6263–6274.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Powers, A. R, 3rd, Hillock, A. R., & Wallace, M. T. (2009). Perceptual training narrows the temporal window of multisensory binding. The Journal of Neuroscience, 29(39), 12265–12274.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Quinto, L., Thompson, W. F., Russo, F. A., & Trehub, S. E. (2010). A comparison of the McGurk effect for spoken and sung syllables. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 72(6), 1450–1454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenblum, L. D., Schmuckler, M. A., & Johnson, J. A. (1997). The McGurk effect in infants. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 59(3), 347–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, L. A., Molholm, S., Blanco, D., Gomez-Ramirez, M., Saint-Amour, D., & Foxe, J. J. (2011). The development of multisensory speech perception continues into the late childhood years. European Journal of Neuroscience, 33(12), 2329–2337.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sekiyama, K., & Burnham, D. (2008). Impact of language on development of auditory-visual speech perception. Developmental Science, 11(2), 306–320.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Soto-Faraco, S., Navarra, J., & Alsius, A. (2004). Assessing automaticity in audiovisual speech integration: Evidence from the speeded classification task. Cognition, 92(3), B13–B23.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, R. A., Wilson, M. M., Powers, A. R., & Wallace, M. T. (2013). The effects of visual training on multisensory temporal processing. Experimental Brain Research, 225(4), 479–89.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, R. A., Zemtsov, R. K., & Wallace, M. T. (2012). Individual differences in the multisensory temporal binding window predict susceptibility to audiovisual illusions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38(6), 1517–29.

    PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sumby, W. H., & Pollack, I. (1954). Visual contribution to speech intelligibility in noise. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 26, 212–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Talsma, D., Senkowski, D., Soto-Faraco, S., & Woldorff, M. G. (2010). The multifaceted interplay between attention and multisensory integration. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(9), 400–410.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, N., Isaac, C., & Milne, E. (2010). A comparison of the development of audiovisual integration in children with autism spectrum disorders and typically developing children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40(11), 1403–1411.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tsao, F.-M., Liu, H.-M., & Kuhl, P. K. (2004). Speech perception in infancy predicts language development in the second year of life: A longitudinal study. Child Development, 75(4), 1067–1084.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • van Wassenhove, V., Grant, K. W., & Poeppel, D. (2005). Visual speech speeds up the neural processing of auditory speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(4), 1181–1186.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wechsler, D. (1999). Wechsler abbreviated scale of intelligence. San Antonio: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, J., Massaro, D. W., Peel, N. J., Bosseler, A., & Suddendorf, T. (2004a). Visual-auditory integration during speech imitation in autism. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 25(6), 559–575.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, J. H., Massaro, D. W., Peel, N. J., Bosseler, A., & Suddendorf, T. (2004b). Visual-auditory integration during speech imitation in autism. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 25(6), 559–575.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Woynaroski, T. G., Kwakye, L. D., Foss-Feig, J. H., Stevenson, R. A., Stone, W. L., & Wallace, M. T. (2013). Multisensory speech rerception in children with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. doi:10.1007/s10803-013-1836-5.

  • Yoder, P., & Stone, W. L. (2006). A randomized comparison of the effect of two prelinguistic communication interventions on the acquisition of spoken communication in preschoolers with ASD. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 49(4), 698–711.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Funding for this work was provided by National Institutes of Health F32 DC011993, Multisensory Integration and Temporal Processing in ASD, National Institutes of Health R34 DC010927, Evaluation of Sensory Integration Treatment in ASD, a Simons Foundation research grant, Exploring Links Between Multisensory and Cognitive Function in Autism, a Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research grant VR7263, Neuroplasticity of Sensory Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders, a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center MARI/Hobbs Award, the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, and the Vanderbilt University Kennedy Center. We also acknowledge the help of Zachary Barnett for technical assistance and Lena Quinto for the stimuli, and thank G.O.B. for his assistance with the multisensory illusions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 7110 MRB III BioSci Bldg, 465 21st Ave South, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Ryan A. Stevenson

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 Saint George St., Toronto, ON, Canada

    Ryan A. Stevenson

  3. Neuroscience Graduate Program, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Justin K. Siemann

  4. Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Tiffany G. Woynaroski & Stephen M. Camarata

  5. Program in Neuroscience, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Brittany C. Schneider & Haley E. Eberly

  6. Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Psychology and Psychiatry, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, 37232, USA

    Mark T. Wallace

Authors
  1. Ryan A. Stevenson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Justin K. Siemann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Tiffany G. Woynaroski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Brittany C. Schneider
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Haley E. Eberly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Stephen M. Camarata
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Mark T. Wallace
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ryan A. Stevenson.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stevenson, R.A., Siemann, J.K., Woynaroski, T.G. et al. Brief Report: Arrested Development of Audiovisual Speech Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorders. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 1470–1477 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1992-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1992-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation