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Predicting Social Competence in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: Effects of Prosody and the Amount of Speech Input

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Title: Predicting Social Competence in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: Effects of Prosody and the Amount of Speech Input
Language: English
Authors: Alyssa Janes (ORCID 0000-0003-4840-2095), Elise McClay (ORCID 0000-0003-3288-574X), Mandeep Gurm (ORCID 0009-0000-7571-9480), Troy Q. Boucher (ORCID 0000-0002-0648-1752), H. Henny Yeung (ORCID 0000-0003-4601-6924), Grace Iarocci (ORCID 0000-0002-7180-9195), Nichole E. Scheerer (ORCID 0000-0003-0070-6559)
Source: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 2025 55(7):2240-2253.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 14
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Predictor Variables, Interpersonal Competence, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Suprasegmentals, Linguistic Input, Children, Child Language, Speech Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Intonation
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-024-06363-w
ISSN: 0162-3257
1573-3432
Abstract: Purpose: Autistic individuals often face challenges perceiving and expressing emotions, potentially stemming from differences in speech prosody. Here we explore how autism diagnoses between groups, and measures of social competence within groups may be related to, first, children's speech characteristics (both prosodic features and amount of spontaneous speech), and second, to these two factors in mothers' speech to their children. Methods: Autistic (n = 21) and non-autistic (n = 18) children, aged 7-12 years, participated in a Lego-building task with their mothers, while conversational speech was recorded. Mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and amount of spontaneous speech were calculated for each child and their mother. Results: The results indicated no differences in speech characteristics across autistic and non-autistic children, or across their mothers, suggesting that conversational context may have large effects on whether differences between autistic and non-autistic populations are found. However, variability in social competence within the group of non-autistic children (but not within autistic children) was predictive of children's mean F0, pitch range and pitch variability. The amount of spontaneous speech produced by mothers (but not their prosody) predicted their autistic children's social competence, which may suggest a heightened impact of scaffolding for mothers of autistic children. Conclusion: Together, results suggest complex interactions between context, social competence, and adaptive parenting strategies in driving prosodic differences in children's speech.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1474283
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0185941328;aut01jul.25;2025Jun17.02:48;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0185941328-1">Predicting Social Competence in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: Effects of Prosody and the Amount of Speech Input </title> <p>Purpose: Autistic individuals often face challenges perceiving and expressing emotions, potentially stemming from differences in speech prosody. Here we explore how autism diagnoses between groups, and measures of social competence within groups may be related to, first, children's speech characteristics (both prosodic features and amount of spontaneous speech), and second, to these two factors in mothers' speech to their children. Methods: Autistic (n = 21) and non-autistic (n = 18) children, aged 7–12 years, participated in a Lego-building task with their mothers, while conversational speech was recorded. Mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and amount of spontaneous speech were calculated for each child and their mother. Results: The results indicated no differences in speech characteristics across autistic and non-autistic children, or across their mothers, suggesting that conversational context may have large effects on whether differences between autistic and non-autistic populations are found. However, variability in social competence within the group of non-autistic children (but not within autistic children) was predictive of children's mean F0, pitch range and pitch variability. The amount of spontaneous speech produced by mothers (but not their prosody) predicted their autistic children's social competence, which may suggest a heightened impact of scaffolding for mothers of autistic children. Conclusion: Together, results suggest complex interactions between context, social competence, and adaptive parenting strategies in driving prosodic differences in children's speech.</p> <p>Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD); Speech; Prosody; Pitch; Social competence; Mothers; Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology</p> <p>Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.</p> <p>Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disability characterized by focused interests, repetitive behaviours, and differences in social communication and interaction (APA, 2013). Many autistic individuals show differences in the production and perception of natural speech (Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref1">72</reflink>]), particularly with respect to speech prosody [i.e., changes in speech duration, loudness, and pitch, including differences in level and in variability (Ding & Zhang, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref2">33</reflink>])], which plays an important role in social communication for autistic individuals (Mann & Karsten, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref3">64</reflink>]). Acoustic variation in speech prosody provides valuable information to the listener about the emotional state and intentions of the speaker, including changes in the rate and rhythm (i.e., duration), loudness (i.e., intensity), and intonation (i.e., pitch of speech sounds over time; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref4">69</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref5">72</reflink>]; Peppe et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref6">75</reflink>]; Stevens et al., [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref7">86</reflink>]). Interestingly, some of the earliest descriptions of social communication in autistic individuals mention differences in prosody, including abnormal intonation, rate, and rhythm of speech (Asperger, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref8">6</reflink>]; Kanner, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref9">53</reflink>]), characteristics which are still considered diagnostically today [see Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R; Lord et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref10">62</reflink>])]. In the subsequent sections of this introduction, we will discuss various aspects of prosody in autism. Specifically, we explore studies regarding the distinct prosodic features exhibited by autistic individuals and how these differences impact the perception of social competence. We will examine the role of parents as early models of speech and communication for both autistic and non-autistic children and discuss how adults adapt their speech patterns based on the child's autism characteristics. Finally, we introduce the Multidimensional Social Competence Scale (MSCS), a validated measure to assess social competence, and discuss specific objectives related to our investigation of speech prosody, social competence, and parental influence.</p> <p>Often, the prosody of speech produced by autistic individuals is described as sounding unusual, robotic, echolalic, bizarre, or emotionless (Baltaxe & Simmons, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref11">10</reflink>]; Baron-Cohen & Staunton, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref12">12</reflink>]; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref13">69</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref14">72</reflink>]; Shriberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref15">82</reflink>]). During the production of emotional speech (i.e., instances where individuals express strong feelings or emotions through spoken language), autistic adults have been shown to speak with longer phrasal durations, as well as with greater intensity and increased pitch range (Hubbard et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref16">51</reflink>]). Indeed, prior work utilizing a clinician rating scale has suggested differences in prosodic functioning across all autistic participants tested in one sample (McCann et al., [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref17">66</reflink>]), with other work demonstrating that autistic children generally have larger pitch ranges than non-autistic speakers (Diehl et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref18">32</reflink>]; Fosnot & Jun, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref19">40</reflink>]; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref20">69</reflink>]; Sharda et al., [<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref21">81</reflink>]). Furthermore, differences in the prosodic functioning of autistic children during sustained vocalizations have been reported. Specifically, when producing sustained vocalizations, autistic children produced faster responses to manipulated pitch changes in auditory feedback, relative to non-autistic children, providing evidence of differences in prosodic regulation (Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref22">79</reflink>]). These acoustic differences in prosodic regulation observed in autistic people ranging in age from eight years to adulthood (Hubbard et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref23">51</reflink>]; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref24">69</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref25">72</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref26">73</reflink>]; Shribeg et al., 2001), may contribute to the perceived differences in the speech of autistic individuals. However, much about this link remains unclear. Specifically, while the speech prosody of autistic children is identifiably different (Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref27">69</reflink>]), it is unclear if these differences are linked to social competence, a relationship which has been suggested in adolescents and adults (Hubbard et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref28">51</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref29">72</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref30">73</reflink>]; Shriberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref31">82</reflink>]).</p> <p>Differences in speech prosody may influence others' judgements of one's social competence (Boucher et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref32">17</reflink>]; Sasson et al., [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref33">78</reflink>]), and so differences in prosodic control may also have downstream effects on social development, as adults increasingly expect children to use speech to communicate thoughts, ideas, and emotions in a particular manner (Bottema-Beutal et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref34">16</reflink>]; De Laguna, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref35">29</reflink>]). Speech development promotes reciprocal communication, which in turn, facilitates the development of communication skills, increases social cognitive competence, and helps to establish and maintain peer relationships (Durkin & Conti-Ramsden, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref36">35</reflink>]). Given the importance of speech prosody for communicating affect and intentions during social interactions, differences in the variation of speech prosody may interfere with the establishment and maintenance of social exchanges which, may ultimately, influence social development.</p> <p>Parents play an important role in the development of speech and communication (Hart et al., [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref37">49</reflink>]; Weisleder & Fernald, [<reflink idref="bib90" id="ref38">90</reflink>]). It is well documented that adults make modifications to their speech prosody when interacting with infants or children, using a speech register that is sometimes referred to as Infant-Directed Speech, or Child-Directed Speech (IDS or CDS; Dunst et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref39">34</reflink>]; Golinkoff et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref40">43</reflink>]; Saint-Georges et al., [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref41">77</reflink>]; Soderstrom, [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref42">84</reflink>]). IDS/CDS is characterized by distinct vocal quality (McClay et al., [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref43">67</reflink>]), as well as several prosodic differences, such as higher and more variable fundamental frequency (i.e., pitch), slower tempo, and longer pauses (Cooper & Aslin, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref44">26</reflink>]; Trainor et al., [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref45">87</reflink>]), which change with age (Cychosz et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref46">28</reflink>]; Ko, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref47">56</reflink>]; Raneri et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref48">76</reflink>]). These prosodic differences have known effects on infants' attention and arousal, ultimately fostering speech development and the expression of affect (Spinelli et al., [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref49">85</reflink>]). Interestingly, autistic children have been shown to attend to IDS/CDS less than non-autistic children (Klin, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref50">55</reflink>]; Kuhl et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref51">59</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref52">72</reflink>]). It has been suggested that this phenomenon be investigated further (Filipe et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref53">39</reflink>]), though it is not unreasonable to assume that this lack of attention to IDS/CDS may be related to established differences in the perception of prosody.</p> <p>There is emerging evidence to suggest that adults are attentive to these autistic differences in the perception of prosody and modify their communication style in response. A recent study indicates that parents of autistic children have marked differences in their production of IDS, which were subsequently shown to be predictive of an autism diagnosis (Woolard et al., [<reflink idref="bib91" id="ref54">91</reflink>]). These results demonstrate how adult speech prosody may be related to social and/or communicative abilities in children and highlight the importance of understanding the nuanced relationship between parent prosody and their children's outcomes. Further work suggests that an adult's (i.e., psychologist's) speech prosody may change depending on a child's autism characteristics (Bone et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref55">14</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref56">15</reflink>]). More specifically, measures of the psychologists' vocal quality and variation (i.e., jitter and shimmer) were found to be predictive of the children's communicative abilities. Interestingly, the prosodic features of the psychologists' speech were more predictive of a child's prosodic behaviours than the measure of the child's autism characteristics (Bone et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref57">14</reflink>]). In a subsequent study, it was found that psychologists demonstrated higher variability in their volume and pitch dynamics when interacting with autistic children, suggesting that they may be modifying their voice to match that of the child (Bone et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref58">15</reflink>]). Further, examining the amount of speech produced by the psychologists during administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS; Emotions and Social Difficulties subtests) revealed that psychologists spoke more when interacting with autistic children who had higher scores on the ADOS (Bone et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref59">15</reflink>]). However, we recognize that autistic children may be less comfortable discussing emotions and social difficulties than non-autistic children, which may have influenced these findings. Taken together, these studies suggest that adults may be aware of, and alter their communication style in response to a child's autism characteristics. Given that social differences are a diagnostic hallmark of autism (APA, 2013), there is reason to believe that there may also be a relationship between parent speech characteristics and their child's social competence, even outside of populations with an autism diagnosis.</p> <p>One method for assessing a child's social competence is by using the childhood version of the Multidimensional Social Competence Scale (MSCS), which is a parent-rating scale that can be used to assess social competence in both autistic and non-autistic children and adolescents (Yager & Iarocci, [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref60">92</reflink>]). The MSCS assesses social competence across seven distinct domains of social functioning including social motivation (i.e., one's desire to engage in social overtures), social inferencing (i.e., one's ability to interpret social cues), demonstrating empathetic concern (i.e., the ability to recognize and respond appropriately to others' emotions), social knowledge (i.e., knowledge of social rules and norms), verbal conversational skills (i.e., the ability to appropriately start, maintain, and end conversations), nonverbal sending skills (i.e. use of non-verbal communication skills likes gestures and eye contact), and emotion regulation (i.e. the ability to modulate and control emotions), allowing both an individual's social strengths and challenges to be identified (Yager & Iarocci, [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref61">92</reflink>]). Using the MSCS, a relationship between social competence and the prosodic control of sustained vowels (Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref62">79</reflink>]), as well as the ability to extract emotions from prosodic changes (Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref63">80</reflink>]), have been identified in both autistic and non-autistic children. Particularly, longer response times to frequency altered auditory feedback of vowels were associated with higher MSCS scores in autistic children, but not non-autistic children (Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref64">79</reflink>]). This indicates that autistic children who take longer to process and respond to prosodic shifts may exhibit greater attention to, and control over, their own prosody. Thus, it may be that autistic children who show greater attention to prosody are deemed more socially competent. Further, lower MSCS scores (i.e., lower social competency) are observed in autistic children that are less accurate in identifying emotion through vocalization (Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref65">80</reflink>]). These results support the notion that atypical perception of prosody is a contributor to the characteristic low social competence of autistic children. However, it is currently unclear whether the production and perception of prosody changes during natural conversational speech are related to ratings of social competence.</p> <p>The specific objectives of the current research were two-fold: First, to investigate differences in speech characteristics between autistic and non-autistic children, as well as their mothers. Second, we investigated whether children's social competence could be predicted from the characteristics of their speech and whether this relationship differed across autistic and non-autistic children. Finally, we asked whether the amount and prosodic properties of mothers' speech may be indicative of their child's social competence. Based on previous investigations of speech prosody in children and adults (Hubbard et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref66">51</reflink>]; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref67">69</reflink>]), we expected that autistic children would have a larger pitch range than non-autistic children, and this increase in pitch range would be related to poorer social competence. Given the documented social awareness that adults demonstrate when interacting with children (Bone et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref68">15</reflink>]; Cohen et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref69">25</reflink>]; Siller & Sigman, [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref70">83</reflink>]), we expected to see differences in parental speech characteristics between mothers of autistic and non-autistic children, with these differences being related to their child's social competence.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-2">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0185941328-3">Participants</hd> <p>Forty-one autistic and non-autistic participants (ages 7–12 years, autistic n = 21) were recruited along with a parent to participate in this research. All participants were mother-child dyads except for one father-child dyad. Considering the parental gender ratio, the father-child dyad was removed from later analyses so that conclusions could be drawn specific to mother-child interactions. Each child's IQ was estimated using the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence Second Edition (WASI-II; Wechsler, [<reflink idref="bib89" id="ref71">89</reflink>]). IQ was estimated using 4 subscales, aside from 2 participants who were unable to complete all four scales. For these participants, a representative 2 subtest estimate was used. One non-autistic participant was later excluded as their IQ was found to be more than 2 standard deviations away from the group mean (thus they were classified as a statistical outlier). The remaining samples of 18 non-autistic and 21 autistic children did not differ in age (<emph>t</emph>(36.98) = − 0.357, <emph>p</emph> =.723, <emph>d = −</emph> 0.114) or IQ (<emph>t</emph>(36.94) = 1.613, <emph>p</emph> =.115, <emph>d =</emph> 0.514; see Table 1 for detailed participant information).</p> <p>Table 1 Participant Characteristics. IQ was measured by the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence II; AQ = Autism Quotient, MSCS = Multidimensional Social Competence Scale. Specific data on race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status were not considered. The <emph>p</emph>-values were obtained from independent samples <emph>t</emph>-tests conducted to compare the age, IQ, AQ, and MSCS scores across non-autistic and autistic participants</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Group</p></th><th align="left"><p>Age</p></th><th align="left"><p>IQ</p></th><th align="left"><p>AQ</p></th><th align="left"><p>MSCS</p></th><th align="left"><p>Sex</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Non-Autistic</p><p>Children</p><p>(<italic>n</italic> = 18)</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M </italic>= 10.04, <italic>SD</italic> = 1.56</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 111.3, <italic>SD</italic> = 10.86</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 14.28, <italic>SD</italic> = 5.13</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 290.4, <italic>SD</italic> = 36.53</p></td><td align="left"><p>9 Males,</p><p>9 Females</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Autistic</p><p>Children</p><p>(<italic>n</italic> = 21)</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 10.22,</p><p><italic>SD</italic> = 1.77</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 105.05, <italic>SD</italic> = 13.25</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 34.29, <italic>SD</italic> = 6.03</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 205.05, <italic>SD</italic> = 31.43</p></td><td align="left"><p>16 Males,</p><p>5 Females</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Between-group differences</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> =.72</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> =.12</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> <.01</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> <.01</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>X</italic><sup><italic>2</italic></sup> (1, 39) = 2.29, <italic>p</italic> =.09</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Mothers of Non-Autistic Children (n = 18)</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 42.39, <italic>SD</italic> = 3.53</p></td><td align="left"><p>n/a</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 14.11, <italic>SD</italic> = 5.42</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 313.50, <italic>SD</italic> = 23.45</p></td><td align="left"><p>0 Males, 18 Females</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Mothers of Autistic Children</p><p>(<italic>n</italic> = 20)<sup>a</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 42.50, <italic>SD</italic> = 5.85</p></td><td align="left"><p>n/a</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 12.95, <italic>SD</italic> = 5.67</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>M</italic> = 323.62, <italic>SD</italic> = 19.95</p></td><td align="left"><p>0 Males,</p><p>21 Females</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Between-group differences</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> =.94</p></td><td align="left"><p>n/a</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> =.52</p></td><td align="left"><p><italic>p</italic> =.16</p></td><td align="left"><p>n/a</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>a</sups>Not all mothers provided their age, hence the data used for mother age comparisons includes 20 mothers in the autistic group</p> <p>Mothers in both groups were of a similar age (<emph>t</emph>(31.69) = − 0.071, <emph>p</emph> =.943, <emph>d</emph> = − 0.023). Participants received $30 as compensation for participation in this study which lasted approximately 3 h. Children also received a small prize. Written informed consent was obtained from the caregiver, and assent was obtained from the children. All procedures were approved by the Simon Fraser University Research Ethics Board (application 2015s0157) and were in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki). No autistic people or community stakeholders were involved in developing this research.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-4">Procedure</hd> <p>The current study was part of a larger study about social competence and emotion regulation. Parents completed questionnaires online and parent-child dyads attended a single lab appointment. During their visit, dyads completed a Lego building task together and cognitive testing (WASI-II) was administered. During the Lego task, parent-child dyads were asked to work together by following instructions to build two Lego animal figures for a prize. This parent-child interaction was video recorded, and the data presented in this manuscript were extracted from these video recordings. The video recorder was set up approximately 6 feet from the dyad, but the position was not precisely controlled.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-5">Measures</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0185941328-6">Autism Diagnosis</hd> <p>Families provided confirmation of their child's autism diagnosis through a diagnostic report or confirmation of funding through the province's Autism Funding Program. In British Columbia, autistic children must be diagnosed by qualified clinicians using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), in addition to clinical judgment, in order to be eligible for this funding. To measure autistic traits in the current study, parents of all children completed the Autism Quotient (AQ) child version (Auyeung et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref72">7</reflink>]); a measure for which creators report high levels of specificity (95%), sensitivity (95%), and test-retest reliability (<emph>r =</emph>.85, <emph>p = <</emph> 0.001; Auyeung et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref73">7</reflink>]). The AQ requires parents to rate their children on several items encompassing a wide variety of behaviours associated with autism. Parents also completed the self-report version.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-7">Social Competence</hd> <p>Caregivers completed the MSCS (Yager & Iarocci, [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref74">92</reflink>]), which requires parents to rate their child's behaviour on 7 domains of social competence: social motivation, social inferencing, emotion regulation, nonverbal sending skills, demonstrating empathic concern, social knowledge, and verbal conversation skills. Parents also completed a self-report version of the MSCS. The overall score created by combining all subscales is used in the current study. The MSCS has been shown to have good internal consistency (α's > 0.84), as well as strong convergent validity with other tests of social competency (social responsiveness scale, <emph>r</emph> = −.89, <emph>p</emph> <.001; Yager & Iarocci, [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref75">92</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-8">Data Analysis</hd> <p>Recordings of mother-child interactions ranged from 615 to 3,648 s, with an average length of 1,473 s. Audio was extracted from the video recordings of each mother-child dyad. These audio files were then duplicated to allow for a separate audio file for the child and the mother. A researcher listened to each audio file individually and using Praat (Boersma, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref76">13</reflink>]), removed background noise and speech that did not belong to the individual of interest (child or mother). When it was unclear who was producing the speech, the researcher cross-referenced the video recording. In instances where the child and the mother spoke at the same time, the speech was rejected for both individuals. Upon completion, a second researcher listened to the audio file to confirm it only contained audio from the individual of interest.</p> <p>In Praat (Boersma, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref77">13</reflink>]), a 10 millisecond (ms) sliding window (i.e., 10ms bin) was used to detect acoustic speech signals and measure each participant's pitch (i.e., fundamental frequency; F0). Praat measured the mean, minimum, maximum, and standard deviation of pitch, in Hertz, over each 10ms bin. With the raw Hertz extracted, <emph>R</emph> (R Core Team, 2022) was used to convert the Hz to semitones above 75 Hz (R function: semitone value = round(12*log2(Hz.value/75),8) to represent pitch in a logarithmic scale, which is a more accurate representation of how pitch is perceived by humans (Arvaniti, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref78">2</reflink>]). Each participant's mean pitch, minimum pitch, maximum pitch, pitch range, and overall standard deviation in pitch (i.e., pitch variability) were averaged. To account for differences in the length of interactions, as well as differences in attention and task shifting (Chein et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref79">24</reflink>]; Goldstein et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref80">42</reflink>]; Mo et al., [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref81">68</reflink>]), a relative measure of the amount of spontaneous speech uttered was calculated for both the child and the mother in each dyad. First, the number of voiced points (i.e., the number of 10ms bins containing active speech, as annotated by a human coder) were summed to represent active speaking time. This total duration of active speaking time was then divided by the total time that this particular speaker was active in the Lego building task, estimated by the elapsed time between their first and last utterances.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-9">Statistical Analyses</hd> <p>For each participant, measures of mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech were included in the statistical analyses. Pitch range and F0 are commonly investigated acoustic features in studies of vocal prosody in both children and adults (Diehl & Paul, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref82">30</reflink>]; Fusaroli et al.[<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref83">41</reflink>]; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref84">69</reflink>]). Calculating the overall standard deviation of pitch, provided a measure of pitch variability, or how much an individual varies their pitch over an entire sample. Furthermore, our spontaneous speech measure allowed us to quantify the amount of time that a participant spoke relative to the entire amount of speech produced during the Lego activity.</p> <p>To determine whether there was a significant effect of diagnosis on children's mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech, two-tailed independent samples <emph>t</emph>-tests were conducted. Hierarchical regressions were then conducted to examine whether variability in the children's social competence could be accounted for by these speech variables. Age and sex were entered into the first step, followed by children's mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech in the second step. Given that autistic and non-autistic children had significantly different MSCS scores, separate regressions were conducted for autistic and non-autistic children.</p> <p>Since we were also interested in the relationship between the mothers' speech characteristics and their child's social competence, separate analyses were conducted to see whether the mothers' speech characteristics might be predictive of their child's social competence in a parallel analysis. First, two-tailed independent samples <emph>t</emph>-tests assessed the effect of the child's diagnosis on mothers' mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech. Then hierarchical regressions were conducted to see whether, after controlling for maternal age, mothers' mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech accounted for significant variance in the children's social competence scores. Given that autistic and non-autistic children had significantly different MSCS scores, separate regressions were conducted on the data from autistic and non-autistic mother-child dyads.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-10">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0185941328-11">Autism and Social Competence Ratings</hd> <p>As expected, autistic children were rated by their caregivers to have higher AQ scores as compared to non-autistic children (<emph>t</emph> (<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref85">37</reflink>) = -11.19, <emph>p</emph> <.001, <emph>d =</emph> -3.572). Mothers did not differ in their ratings of their own autism characteristics (<emph>t</emph> (36.53) = 0.651, <emph>p</emph> =.519, <emph>d =</emph> 0.208). Non-autistic children were rated significantly higher in social competence by their mothers (<emph>t</emph> (33.83) = 7.758, <emph>p</emph> <.001, <emph>d</emph> = 2.506). There were no significant group differences on the maternal self-report of the MSCS (<emph>t</emph> (33.64) = -1.438, <emph>p</emph> =.160, <emph>d = −</emph> 0.464; see Table 1; Fig. 1).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Violin plot depicting the distribution of child speech characteristics, AQ, and Total MSCS Score by diagnosis. The red circle represents the median, and box length = Q0-Q4 interquartile range (IQR)</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-12">Child Speech Characteristics</hd> <p>Unlike AQ and MSCS, no group differences were identified in pitch range, <emph>t</emph> (36.22) = 0.073, <emph>p</emph> =.942, <emph>d</emph> = 0.023, mean F0, <emph>t</emph> (36.43) = 0.338, <emph>p</emph> =.737, <emph>d</emph> = 0.106, pitch variability, <emph>t</emph> (32.04) = 1.097, <emph>p</emph> =.281, <emph>d</emph> = 0.356, or spontaneous speech, <emph>t</emph> (36.49) = − 0.553, <emph>p</emph> =.583, <emph>d = −</emph> 0.177, measures (see Fig. 1).</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-13">Can Children's Speech Patterns Predict Their Social Competence?</hd> <p>Hierarchical regressions were conducted to see whether, after controlling for age and sex, mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech values could predict MSCS scores, separately for autistic and non-autistic children.</p> <p> <emph>Non-Autistic Children</emph>. Though Step 1 of the model was not significant overall (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.254, <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref86">2</reflink>, 15) = 2.551, <emph>p</emph> =.111), sex accounted for significant variance in MSCS scores (β = 36.269, <emph>SE</emph> = 16.417, <emph>95% CI</emph> [1.277, 71.260], <emph>p</emph> =.043). Step 2 of the model indicated that when mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech were added to the model, a large portion of the variance in MSCS scores could be accounted for (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.779, <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref87">6</reflink>, 11) = 6.495, <emph>p =</emph>.004; see Table 2<emph>).</emph></p> <p>Table 2 Hierarchical regressions exploring the relations between non-autistic children's speech characteristics and social competence (n=18).</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" /><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>MSCS</p></th><th align="left" /></tr><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Model 1</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Model 2</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Variable</p></th><th align="left"><p>B</p></th><th align="left"><p>β</p></th><th align="left"><p>B</p></th><th align="left"><p>β</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Constant</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>215.579**</p></td><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>1033.948***</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Age</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>5.653</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.240</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>-4.418</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.187</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Sex</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>36.269*</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.511</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>39.302**</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.553</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Mean F0</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>-10.191*</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.452</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Pitch Range</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>-15.325**</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.748</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Pitch Variability</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>3.599</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.099</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Spontaneous Speech</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>2.786</p></td><td align="left"><p>.269</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>R<sup>2</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>0.254</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>0.779</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>F</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.551</p></td><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>6.495**</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>∆R<sup>2</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>0.254</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>0.526</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>∆F</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2.551</p></td><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char"><p>6.571**</p></td><td align="left" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>*<emph>p</emph> <.05, **<emph>p</emph> <.01, ***<emph>p</emph> <.001</p> <p>More specifically, sex, (β = 39.302, <emph>SE</emph> = 12.242, <emph>95% CI</emph> [12.357, 66.246], <emph>p</emph> =.008), mean F0, (β = -10.191, <emph>SE</emph> = 3.999, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-18.992, -1.390], <emph>p</emph> =.027), and pitch range, (β = -15.325, <emph>SE</emph> = 4.119, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-24.391, -6.260], <emph>p</emph> =.003), accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in MSCS scores. The specific correlations between pitch range and total MSCS scores, as well as mean F0 and total MSCS Scores, are illustrated in Fig. 2.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 2 Correlations between significant speech characteristics and total MSCS scores for non-autistic children. a) Illustrates the relationship between mean F0 (semitones above 75 Hz) and social competence, as measured by the total MSCS Score (R2 = 0.053). b) Depicts the association between pitch range (semitones above 75 Hz) and total MSCS Score (R2 = 0.426)</p> <p>To further explore the significant relationship between the MSCS total score and the non-autistic children's speech characteristics, regressions analyses were conducted between MSCS subscales, and non-autistic children's speech characteristics (see Online Resource 1): Findings suggest that this relationship emerges from significant ties between pitch range and the Social Motivation (β = -2.849, <emph>SE</emph> = 1.028, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-5.113, -0.585], <emph>p</emph> =.018) and Non-Verbal Sending Skills (β = -2.059, <emph>SE</emph> = 0.916, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-4.076, -0.043], <emph>p</emph> =.046) subscales. In addition, it appears that a significant relationship between mean F0 and the Social Inferencing (β = -2.484, <emph>SE</emph> = 1.011, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-4.709, -0.260], <emph>p</emph> =.032) subscale may further contribute to the overall relationship between non-autistic children's speech characteristics and social competence.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-14">Autistic Children</hd> <p>Step 1 of the model indicated that age and sex did not account for significant variance in MSCS scores (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.012, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref88">2</reflink>, 18) = 0.106, <emph>p</emph> =.900). Step 2 of the model indicated that when mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech were added to the model, the model did not account for significant variance in MSCS scores (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.250, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref89">6</reflink>, 14) = 0.777, <emph>p</emph> =.601; see Online Resource 1).</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-15">Maternal Speech Characteristics</hd> <p>No group differences in mean F0, <emph>t</emph>(35.97) = − 0.112, <emph>p</emph> =.911, <emph>d</emph> = − 0.035, pitch range, <emph>t</emph>(26.43) = -1.013, <emph>p</emph> =.32, <emph>d</emph> = − 0.332, pitch variability, <emph>t</emph>(34.76) = 0.625, <emph>p</emph> =.536, <emph>d</emph> = 0.201, or spontaneous speech, <emph>t</emph>(<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref90">36</reflink>) = − 0.907, <emph>p</emph> =.370, <emph>d</emph> = − 0.292, measures were found.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-16">Can Mothers' Speech Patterns Predict Children's Social Competence?</hd> <p>Hierarchical regressions were used to investigate whether, after controlling for the mothers' age, their mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech values could predict their child's MSCS scores, separately for mothers of autistic and non-autistic children.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-17">Non-Autistic Children</hd> <p>Step 1 of the model indicated that maternal age did not significantly predict the non-autistic children's MSCS scores (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.006, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref91">1</reflink>, 16) = 0.097, <emph>p</emph> =.760). Step 2 of the model indicated that when mothers' mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech were added to the model, significant variance in their children's MSCS scores was not accounted for (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.156, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref92">5</reflink>, 12) = 0.444, <emph>p</emph> =.810; see Online Resource 1).</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-18">Autistic Children</hd> <p>Step 1 of the model indicated that the mothers' age accounted for significant variance in autistic children's MSCS scores (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.205, <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref93">1</reflink>, 18) = 4.653, <emph>p</emph> =.045) scores. Step 2 of the model indicated that when mothers' mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and spontaneous speech were added to the model, additional variance in MSCS scores was accounted for (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.653, <emph>F</emph> (<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref94">5</reflink>, 14) = 5.273, <emph>p</emph> =.006; see Table 3).</p> <p>Table 3 Hierarchical regressions examining the relation between mothers of autistic children's speech characteristics and their child's social competence (n=21).</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" /><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>MSCS</p></th><th align="left" /></tr><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Model 1</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>Model 2</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>Variable</p></th><th align="left"><p>B</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>β</p></th><th align="left"><p>B</p></th><th align="left"><p>β</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Constant</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>301.358***</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>518.052**</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Age<sup>a</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>-2.325*</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>-0.453</p></td><td align="left"><p>-2.375*</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.463</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Mean F0</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>-0.983</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.065</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Pitch Range</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>-4.618</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.213</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Pitch Variability</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>-0.992</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.033</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Spontaneous Speech</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>-2.146*</p></td><td align="left"><p>-0.532</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>R2</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.205</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>0.653</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>F</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.653*</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>5.273**</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>∆R2</p></td><td align="left"><p>0.205</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>0.448</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>∆F</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.653*</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2" /><td align="left"><p>4.519*</p></td><td align="left" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>a</sups> <emph>n</emph> = 20. *<emph>p</emph> <.05, **<emph>p</emph> <.01, ***<emph>p</emph> <.001</p> <p>More specifically, the relative amount of spontaneous speech produced by the mothers (β = -2.146, <emph>SE</emph> = 0.866, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-4.004, -0.289], <emph>p</emph> =.027), accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in their child's total MSCS scores (see Fig. 3).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 3 Correlation between amount of maternal spontaneous speech and total MSCS scores for autistic children (R2 = 0.469). *Note that maternal spontaneous speech is a representative ratio for active speech calculated by dividing the number of voiced points (10ms bins) by total speaking time</p> <p>To investigate this significant relation between maternal speech and their autistic child's total MSCS score further, we explored the relationship between mothers of autistic children's speech characteristics and each MSCS subscale rating for their child. Interestingly, when considering these follow up regressions, only the model predicting the Demonstrating Empathic Concern subscale reached significance (<emph>R</emph><sups>2</sups> = 0.640, <emph>F</emph>(<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref95">5</reflink>, 14) = 4.977, <emph>p</emph> =.008). Thus, the variance explained by the relative amount of speech produced by the mothers may be most strongly related to the child's ability to demonstrate empathetic concern (<emph>β</emph> = -0.751, <emph>SE</emph> = 0.230, <emph>95% CI</emph> [-1.245, -0.258], <emph>p</emph> =.006; see Online Resource 1).</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-19">Discussion</hd> <p>This study examined differences in speech characteristics across autistic and non-autistic children, as well as mothers of autistic and non-autistic children, as mother-child dyads interacted while completing a Lego building task. In addition, we examined whether variance in a child's social competence could be accounted for by differences in the prosodic features, and quantity, of their own and their mother's speech.</p> <p>To examine differences in prosodic features across autistic and non-autistic children, we compared mean pitch (F0), pitch range, and pitch variability. Interestingly, none of these measures were found to differ across the autistic and non-autistic children. We also examined the chattiness of autistic and non-autistic children (i.e., the relative amount of spontaneous speech), which did not differ across groups. These results were unexpected, as many previous studies have documented differences in the prosody of autistic and non-autistic individuals (Diehl & Paul, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref96">30</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref97">31</reflink>]; Filipe et al., [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref98">38</reflink>]; Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref99">79</reflink>]). However, it is notable that findings across studies are variable. For example, Diehl and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref100">32</reflink>]) found no group differences in mean F0 across autistic and non-autistic individuals who participated in a story-retelling task. More recently, Patel et al. ([<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref101">70</reflink>]) reported finding no differences in mean F0 and pitch range, in autistic and non-autistic speakers who were eliciting narratives. It has been suggested that these heterogeneous findings could be a result of inconsistent methodology, as there is evidence that group differences vary based on prosodic level (e.g., word, sentence, conversation) and context (e.g., grammatical, pragmatic, emotional; Lehnert-Lehouillier et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref102">61</reflink>]). Unlike most previous research, our participants were asked to engage in a social task that elicited natural conversation with a familiar adult (i.e., their mother). In addition, the Lego task was completed in a controlled laboratory setting where sensory stimulation was well controlled. Specifically, the room was scent free, quiet, and the lights were relatively dim. It is possible that under these reduced social and sensory pressures, respectively, autistic children regulate their speech similarly to non-autistic children. Future research should explore how social and sensory demands may interact with the regulation of speech prosody. Nonetheless, our results support the notion that prosodic differences across autistic and non-autistic children may not be a robust finding, rather they may be context specific, or perhaps the heterogeneity of the autistic population may contribute to more variation in individual prosodic abilities than previously thought.</p> <p>Even though there were no overall differences in prosodic characteristics across the autistic and non-autistic children, mean F0 and pitch range were found to predict the social competence scores of the non-autistic children, but not the autistic children. These findings highlight how prosodic features (e.g., mean F0 and pitch range) may be a less important social feature for autistic children, which we discuss further below. More specifically, for non-autistic children, being female, having a lower mean F0 and a smaller pitch range were associated with higher MSCS scores, reflecting higher mother-reported social competence. This suggests that a higher mean F0 and wider pitch range may be indicative of less perceived social aptitude, such that children with these speech characteristics are judged as less socially competent. This is consistent with previous research that has reported that higher F0 (Cheng et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref103">23</reflink>]; Feinberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref104">36</reflink>]; Ko et al., [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref105">57</reflink>]) and greater variation in pitch (Cheng et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref106">23</reflink>]; Gregory et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref107">46</reflink>]; Gregory & Webster, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref108">45</reflink>]) are linked to meekness and lower social rank, respectively.</p> <p>While aspects of the speech signal were found to relate to social competence in non-autistic children, this was not the case for autistic children. Previous work has shown that autistic children demonstrate differences in the control of their vocal pitch (Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref109">79</reflink>]), thus it is possible that changes in prosody produced by children without autism carry expressive and communicative functions, while these changes are more idiosyncratic in children with autism. This aligns with evidence which suggests that autistic children often display atypical attention to prosody of speech (Brooks & Ploog, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref110">19</reflink>]; Charpentier et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref111">22</reflink>]). Perhaps it is that speech development in autistic individuals may not be as socially dependent as those who are non-autistic, rendering attention to prosody less beneficial (Ference & Curtin, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref112">37</reflink>]).</p> <p>Future work should aim to elucidate whether pitch modulations produced by autistic and non-autistic children differ in terms of their communicative function. Alternatively, it is possible that the lack of a meaningful relationship between prosodic characteristics and social competence in autistic children is related to the range of social differences experienced by autistic children. While speech differences are commonly reported (Hubbard et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref113">51</reflink>]; Nadig & Shaw, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref114">69</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref115">72</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref116">73</reflink>]; Shribeg et al., 2001), autistic children also demonstrate differences in understanding social cues (Ashwin et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref117">5</reflink>]; Greene et al., [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref118">44</reflink>]; Jellema et al., [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref119">52</reflink>]; Lott-Sandkamp et al., [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref120">63</reflink>]), perspective-taking (Bamicha & Drigas, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref121">11</reflink>]; Burnside et al., [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref122">20</reflink>]; Brewer et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref123">18</reflink>]; Kimhi, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref124">54</reflink>]; Mazza et al., [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref125">65</reflink>]), reciprocal social interactions (Capps et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref126">21</reflink>]; Jones & Schwartz, 2008; Landa et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref127">60</reflink>]; Paul et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref128">71</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref129">74</reflink>]), amongst other social differences, thus differences in prosodic characteristics may be just one aspect of a broader array of factors that influence perception of social competence in autistic children. To further explore the nuanced relationship between social competence and speech characteristics, particularly before the development of social referencing and masking (Hansen et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref130">48</reflink>]), researchers might consider investigating this relationship in children of younger age groups. By examining children of younger ages, we might better understand the foundational connections between speech characteristics and social competency.</p> <p>A secondary aim of this research was to investigate whether the prosodic properties of a mother's speech can be indicative of their child's social competence. Overall, mothers of autistic children did not show differences in mean pitch, pitch variability, pitch range, or spontaneous speech relative to mothers of non-autistic children. These groups of mothers also did not show differences in social competence or autistic traits. While mothers of the autistic children were not found to produce more spontaneous speech than mothers of the non-autistic children, the relative amount of spontaneous speech produced by mothers of the autistic children (but not mothers of non-autistic children) was negatively correlated with their perception of their autistic child's social competence. This relationship, thus, provides further support for the notion that mothers of autistic children attempt to scaffold their child's communication (Baker et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref131">8</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref132">9</reflink>]). Understanding that their children struggle with social communication, these mothers may attempt to compensate by producing more speech to facilitate the interaction (Bottema-Beutal et al., 2014; Guralnick et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref133">47</reflink>]). However, given our findings are relational, not causal in nature, it is also possible that this increased speech by their mother limits opportunities for their child to develop their social communication skills, thus resulting in lower social competence. Beyond the influence of mother's speech, there is evidence to suggest that the type of task used for voice elicitation can result in significantly different speech behaviours in autistic individuals (Asghari et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref134">3</reflink>]). So, while our study highlights the complex relationship between maternal speech patterns and children's social competence, it is essential to recognize that task demands may modulate these dynamics.</p> <p>Finally, when making overall comparisons, it is noteworthy that predictors of social competence diverged between autistic and non-autistic children. More specifically, our findings indicate that social competence in non-autistic children was significantly related to their own speech patterns, whereas social competence in autistic children is more closely related to their mothers' speech patterns. This is likely a reflection of the differing importance of prosodic cues in social interactions for autistic and non-autistic children. While prosody may carry significant social meaning for non-autistic individuals (Hellbernd & Sammler, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref135">50</reflink>]), autistic individuals tend to rely more on literal meaning (Vincente & Falkum, [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref136">88</reflink>]). Given this autistic preference for literalism, perhaps it is that caregiver <emph>language</emph> input may play a more influential role in predicting social competence in autistic children compared to speech prosody (i.e., prosodic cues).</p> <p>It is important to acknowledge certain limitations imposed by the current study design. Firstly, the autistic sample presented with a mean IQ that was not statistically different from those participants who were non-autistic. Thus, this sample is not representative of the entire autism spectrum, and conclusions may only be drawn about those autistic individuals with IQs resembling age-matched peers. Given our analyses of the relationship between social competence and pitch characteristics are correlational in nature, we are unable to make causal conclusions from the current results. Due to unequal gender ratios, our study did not include father-child dyads. It would be valuable for future research to investigate whether findings related to speech patterns and social competence differ in father-child, or other caregiver, interactions, as potential differences might provide insights into the unique contributions of mother- and father-child interactions in social development. Furthermore, the use of parent-reported measures such as the MSCS may not be as robust as direct measures of social competence, therefore, future studies should address this limitation by including additional measures of social competency.</p> <p>Social differences are characteristic of autism. These social differences can lead to feelings of sadness, impaired academic performance and decreased overall well-being (Ashbaugh et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref137">4</reflink>]). These results further our understanding of the relationship between prosodic functioning and social competence by identifying unique speech characteristics (i.e., mean F0 and pitch range) that are related to social competence in non-autistic children, but not autistic children. As well, they provide insight regarding the role of mother's prosodic characteristics in social development. This study contributes to a growing body of literature that aims to identify atypicalities in prosodic functioning of autistic children, and how this may relate to social development (Costescu et al., [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref138">27</reflink>]; Kruyt & Beňuš, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref139">58</reflink>]; Scheerer et al., [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref140">79</reflink>]). By identifying trends associated with measures of social competence, we may be able to identify future intervention targets more accurately in families with autistic children.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-20">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>Rilla MacDonald, Lisa Miele, Spencer Angus, Madison Hearn, Kevin Kong, Brittni Thompson, Marieke Vandenhende, Payman Baharmand, Victoria Lee, Mila Djordjevic, Paula Correa, Emma Hutchinson, Faith Yuen, Clarissa Montgomery for their work collecting data, summarizing transcriptions, and processing audio files.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-21">Funding</hd> <p>This work was funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant to HHY (<reflink idref="bib435" id="ref141">435-2020-0507</reflink>).</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-22">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0185941328-23">Conflict of interest</hd> <p>The authors have no conflicts to declare.</p> <hd id="AN0185941328-24">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0185941328-25"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref91" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> American Psychiatric Association (2013). 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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Predicting Social Competence in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: Effects of Prosody and the Amount of Speech Input
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Alyssa+Janes%22">Alyssa Janes</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4840-2095">0000-0003-4840-2095</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Elise+McClay%22">Elise McClay</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3288-574X">0000-0003-3288-574X</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Mandeep+Gurm%22">Mandeep Gurm</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0009-0000-7571-9480">0009-0000-7571-9480</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Troy+Q%2E+Boucher%22">Troy Q. Boucher</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0648-1752">0000-0002-0648-1752</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22H%2E+Henny+Yeung%22">H. Henny Yeung</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4601-6924">0000-0003-4601-6924</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Grace+Iarocci%22">Grace Iarocci</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7180-9195">0000-0002-7180-9195</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Nichole+E%2E+Scheerer%22">Nichole E. Scheerer</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0070-6559">0000-0003-0070-6559</externalLink>)
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Journal+of+Autism+and+Developmental+Disorders%22"><i>Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders</i></searchLink>. 2025 55(7):2240-2253.
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  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 14
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Predictor+Variables%22">Predictor Variables</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interpersonal+Competence%22">Interpersonal Competence</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Autism+Spectrum+Disorders%22">Autism Spectrum Disorders</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Suprasegmentals%22">Suprasegmentals</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Linguistic+Input%22">Linguistic Input</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Children%22">Children</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Child+Language%22">Child Language</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Speech+Communication%22">Speech Communication</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interpersonal+Communication%22">Interpersonal Communication</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Intonation%22">Intonation</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s10803-024-06363-w
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0162-3257<br />1573-3432
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Purpose: Autistic individuals often face challenges perceiving and expressing emotions, potentially stemming from differences in speech prosody. Here we explore how autism diagnoses between groups, and measures of social competence within groups may be related to, first, children's speech characteristics (both prosodic features and amount of spontaneous speech), and second, to these two factors in mothers' speech to their children. Methods: Autistic (n = 21) and non-autistic (n = 18) children, aged 7-12 years, participated in a Lego-building task with their mothers, while conversational speech was recorded. Mean F0, pitch range, pitch variability, and amount of spontaneous speech were calculated for each child and their mother. Results: The results indicated no differences in speech characteristics across autistic and non-autistic children, or across their mothers, suggesting that conversational context may have large effects on whether differences between autistic and non-autistic populations are found. However, variability in social competence within the group of non-autistic children (but not within autistic children) was predictive of children's mean F0, pitch range and pitch variability. The amount of spontaneous speech produced by mothers (but not their prosody) predicted their autistic children's social competence, which may suggest a heightened impact of scaffolding for mothers of autistic children. Conclusion: Together, results suggest complex interactions between context, social competence, and adaptive parenting strategies in driving prosodic differences in children's speech.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
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  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1474283
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1474283
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  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s10803-024-06363-w
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      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 14
        StartPage: 2240
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Predictor Variables
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Interpersonal Competence
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Autism Spectrum Disorders
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Suprasegmentals
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Linguistic Input
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      – SubjectFull: Children
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      – SubjectFull: Child Language
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      – SubjectFull: Speech Communication
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      – SubjectFull: Interpersonal Communication
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      – SubjectFull: Intonation
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Predicting Social Competence in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children: Effects of Prosody and the Amount of Speech Input
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            NameFull: Nichole E. Scheerer
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              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
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              Value: 0162-3257
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