Voice Quality in Italian Speaking Children with Autism

This research aims to measure the voice quality of Italian-speaking children with autism. Previous studies on voice quality of individuals with autism reported abnormal characteristics like high pitch, great pitch excursions, large changes in volume, and creaky voice, hoarseness and harshness; also, great variability was found among the children. Previous studies were mostly based on perceptual evaluations and did not focus specifically on Italian-speaking children. The present study aims to gather acoustic data to identify features of dysphonia in autism, and to shed some light on the nature and causes of this dysphonia. The results would help create a pediatric assessment tool for early identification of autism. Participants were 13 native Italian-speaking boys and 1 girl (4-9 years old), with a diagnosis of High Functioning Autism. Acoustic voice parameters were extracted from CAPE-V speech samples, and analyzed by Praat. A one-sample t-test was performed to verify whether the voice parameters were within normal limits. The results indicated that Italian-speaking children with autism used a normal voice quality (no hoarseness, roughness, or breathiness). However, high pitch, great pitch modulation, high loudness and wide dynamic range were found, probably determined by the use of sing-song intonation by some children. Similar pitch and loudness abnormalities were reported in previous studies on children speaking different languages, and might be considered as a universal feature of voice production in autism.