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Quantitative analysis of disfluency in children with autism spectrum disorder or language impairment

Open access
MacFarlane, Heather, Gorman, Kyle, Ingham, Rosemary, Presmanes Hill, Alison, Papadakis, Katina, Kiss, Géza, van Santen, Jan·2017·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0173936PMC PMC5352011
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Abstract

Deficits in social communication, particularly pragmatic language, are characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Speech disfluencies may serve pragmatic functions such as cueing speaking problems. Previous studies have found that speakers with ASD differ from typically developing (TD) speakers in the types and patterns of disfluencies they produce, but fail to provide sufficiently detailed characterizations of the methods used to categorize and quantify disfluency, making cross-study comparison difficult. In this study we propose a simple schema for classifying major disfluency types, and use this schema in an exploratory analysis of differences in disfluency rates and patterns among children with ASD compared to TD and language impaired (SLI) groups. 115 children ages 4-8 participated in the study (ASD = 51; SLI = 20; TD = 44), completing a battery of experimental tasks and assessments. Measures of morphological and syntactic complexity, as well as word and disfluency counts, were derived from transcripts of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). High inter-annotator agreement was obtained with the use of the proposed schema. Analyses showed ASD children produced a higher ratio of content to filler disfluencies than TD children. Relative frequencies of repetitions, revisions, and false starts did not differ significantly between groups. TD children also produced more cued disfluencies than ASD children.

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  • Children and adults with ASD produce unusually high rates of various speech disfluencies.

    “A significant body of research suggests that children and adults with ASD produce unusually high rates of various speech disfluencies [16, 35, 42, 50, 51, 54], but only three studies have specifically examined UM and UH.”

    From Linguistic camouflage in girls with autism spectrum disorder (2017) · cites this paper as [42]

  • Language samples drawn from the interview section of the ADOS module 3 provide a naturalistic back-and-forth conversation about social topics and contain meaningful rates of speech disfluencies in children with ASD.

    “These samples provide a naturalistic back-and-forth conversation about social topics, and have been shown to contain meaningful rates of speech disfluencies in children with ASD [24, 26, 42].”

    From Linguistic camouflage in girls with autism spectrum disorder (2017) · cites this paper as [42]

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. [8]Kim SH, Paul R, Tager-Flusberg H, Lord C. In: Volkmar F, Rogers S, Paul R, Pelphrey KA, editors. Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders. 4th ed Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons; (2014). pp. 230– 262.
  2. [10]Landa R. Social language use in Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism In: Klin A, Volkmar F, Sparrow S, editors. Asperger Syndrome. New York: Guilford Press; (2000). pp. 125– 155.
  3. [37]Shriberg EE. Preliminaries to a theory of speech disfluencies. Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley. 1994.
  4. [61]Semel EM, Wiig EH, Secord W. Clinical evaluation of language fundamentals, preschool. 2nd ed San Antonio: Pearson, Psychological Corporation; 2004.
  5. [62]Semel EM, Wiig EH, Secord W. Clinical evaluation of language fundamentals. 4th ed San Antonio: Pearson, Psychological Corporation; 2003.

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Authors
MacFarlane, H., Gorman, K., Ingham, R., Presmanes Hill, A., Papadakis, K., Kiss, G., & van Santen, J.
Affiliations
Oregon Health & Science University (US)
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2017-03-15
Volume
12
Issue
3
Pages
e0173936
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0173936
PMC
PMC5352011
OpenAlex
W2601558174
Cited by
32
References
94
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3
FWCI
4.42
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • Autism Speaks
  • Santen
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC012033, R01DC007129)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Stuttering Research and Treatment
Keywords
disfluency, autism spectrum disorder, language impairment, pragmatic language, repetition, revision, false starts, morphological complexity, syntactic complexity, children, inter-annotator agreement
MeSH terms
Autism Spectrum Disorder, Child, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Language Disorders, Male

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