Abstract
The present study compared the infant’s tendency in the first year of life to produce clusters of particular vocal types (squeals, vocants, and growls) in typically develo** (TD) and autistic infants. Vocal clustering provides evidence of vocal category formation and may establish a foundation for speech development. Specifically, we compared the extent of vocal clustering across outcome groups and age groups. We also examined the associations between the extent of vocal clustering and later outcomes at 2 years within the autistic group. Randomly selected 5-min segments (27,153 5-min segments total) from 1293 all-day home recordings from 103 TD infants and 44 autistic infants across the first year were humancoded (about 9.75 h of data coded per infant on average) to derive vocal clustering patterns. Fisher’s exact tests were used to compare the occurrence of squeals versus vocants, as well as growls versus vocants, across coded segments. Infants in both groups demonstrated clear clustering patterns of squeals and growls across all age groups. The extent of vocal clustering in the autistic group did not correlate significantly with later language, repetitive behavior, or autism severity outcomes. These findings highlight the robustness of the systematic production of vocal categories across the first year of life. The similarity of the clustering patterns in the TD and autistic groups suggests that vocal category formation through active infant vocal exploration is a robust feature of early speech development.
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Notes
We use “autistic infants” to refer to infants who later received a confirmed diagnosis of autism. We also draw a distinction between “EL (elevated likelihood) infants” and “autistic infants”, with the latter referring to infants with a confirmed diagnosis of autism regardless of their likelihood status.
Speech-like or speech-related vocalizations are defined variously across studies. Some studies only include vocalizations that can be reasonably represented by phonetic symbols (excluding squeals and growls) in the speech-like category (Paul et al., 2011; Plate et al., 2021). Other studies include all three phonatory protophones (squeals, growls, and vocants) and others in addition to canonical babbling as speech-like vocalizations (Patten et al., 2014; Yoo et al., 2018; Oller, 2000; Oller et al., 2021).
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the participating families for their time and dedication to the longitudinal component of this project. We also thank OLL lab graduate research assistant coders.
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Research reported in this publication was supported by NIDCD Grant R01DC015108 (PI: Oller, Subaward PI: Ramsay), and NIMH Grant P50MH100029 (Co-PI: Ramsay). Additional support was provided by the Plough Foundation, the Holly Lane Foundation, the Marcus Foundation, the Woodruff-Whitehead Foundation, and the Georgia Research Alliance.
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The authors confirm their contribution to the paper as follows: study conception and design: PLS, HY, GR, ERB, and DKO; data collection and clinical assessment: GR, CK, SPW, SR, MLP, NB; data coding, analysis, and interpretation of results: PLS, HY, GR, ERB, HLL, DKO; Writing—Original draft: PLS, DKO; Writing—Review and Editing: PLS, HY, HLL, GR, ERB, CK, SPW, SR, MLP, NB, DKO. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Su, P.L., Yoo, H., Ramsay, G. et al. Foundations of Vocal Category Development in Autistic Infants. J Autism Dev Disord (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06267-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06267-9