Children's speech processing and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient

What is it about?

Previous work suggests that how adults score on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is related to whether or not they hear speech sounds as they are, without being influenced by their expectations of what the sounds should be. This paper examines if the same relationship can be found in children between the ages of 4 and 7 years.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Our findings show that AQ scores can indeed predict how children hear speech sounds in context. However, their speech perception performance was not related to another measure of autistic traits. This suggests that some cognitive trait measured by the AQ is related to how children process speech sounds, but the trait may be more general and not directly linked to autism.