Lifelong Tone Language Experience does not Eliminate Deficits in Neural Encoding of Pitch in Autism Spectrum Disorder
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Lifelong Tone Language Experience does not Eliminate Deficits in Neural Encoding of Pitch in Autism Spectrum Disorder Joseph C. Y. Lau1,2,5,6,7 · Carol K. S. To3 · Judy S. K. Kwan1,4 · Xin Kang1,2 · Molly Losh5 · Patrick C. M. Wong1,2 Accepted: 11 November 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Atypical pitch processing is a feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which affects non-tone language speakers’ communication. Lifelong auditory experience has been demonstrated to modify genetically-predisposed risks for pitch processing. We examined individuals with ASD to test the hypothesis that lifelong auditory experience in tone language may eliminate impaired pitch processing in ASD. We examined children’s and adults’ Frequency-following Response (FFR), a neurophysiological component indexing early neural sensory encoding of pitch. Univariate and machine-learning-based analytics suggest less robust pitch encoding and diminished pitch distinctions in the FFR from individuals with ASD. Contrary to our hypothesis, results point to a linguistic pitch encoding impairment associated with ASD that may not be eliminated even by lifelong sensory experience. Keywords Autism Spectrum Disorder · Neural pitch encoding · Frequency-following responses · Machine-learning · Tone language Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a genetically-based neurodevelopmental disorder which affects many individuals around the world. Although a recent explosion of research in ASD has provided many new insights into this disorder, this research has mostly focused on populations of European descent. One reason that this focus may lead to an * Patrick C. M. Wong [email protected] 1
Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China
2
Brain and Mind Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR, China
3
Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
4
Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong SAR, China
5
Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
6
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
7
Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
incomplete understanding of ASD is that language, a domain that is often impaired in ASD, is fundamentally cultural. One aspect known to be fundamentally different across languages is the use of pitch in conveying meaning. All spoken languages use pitch to convey prosodic meaning such as mood, i.e. affective prosody, which is a landmark deficit domain of ASD (Baltaxe and Simmons 1985; Losh et al. 2012; Patel et al. 2019). However, most languages (European languages like English being exceptions) also use pitch to convey word meaning (i.e. lexical tone) (Yip 2002). Languages of this type are tone languages. For exa
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