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Enhanced pitch discrimination in autistic children with unexpected bilingualism

Dumont, Charlotte; Belenger, Marie; Eigsti, Inge-Marie; Kissine, Mikhail; (2024) Enhanced pitch discrimination in autistic children with unexpected bilingualism. Autism Research , 17 (9) pp. 1844-1852. 10.1002/aur.3221.

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Abstract

Some autistic children acquire foreign languages from exposure to screens. Such unexpected bilingualism (UB) is therefore not driven by social interaction, rather, language acquisition appears to rely on less socially mediated learning and other cognitive processes. We hypothesize that UB children may rely on other cues, such as acoustic cues, of the linguistic input. Previous research indicates enhanced pitch processing in some autistic children, often associated with language delays and difficulties in forming stable phonological categories due to sensitivity to subtle linguistic variations. We propose that repetitive screen-based input simplifies linguistic complexity, allowing focus on individual cues. This study hypothesizes that autistic UB children exhibit superior pitch discrimination compared with both autistic and non-autistic peers. From a sample of 46 autistic French-speaking children aged 9 to 16, 12 were considered as UB. These children, along with 45 non-autistic children, participated in a two-alternative forced-choice pitch discrimination task. They listened to pairs of pure tones, 50% of which differed by 3% (easy), 2% (medium), or 1% (hard). A stringent comparison of performance revealed that only the autistic UB group performed above chance for tone pairs that differed, across all conditions. This group demonstrated superior pitch discrimination relative to autistic and non-autistic peers. This study establishes the phenomenon of UB in autism and provides evidence for enhanced pitch discrimination in this group. Acute perception of auditory information, combined with repeated language content, may facilitate UB children's focus on phonetic features, and help acquire a language with no communicative support or motivation.

Type: Article
Title: Enhanced pitch discrimination in autistic children with unexpected bilingualism
Location: United States
DOI: 10.1002/aur.3221
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3221
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Autism; Unexpected Bilingualism; language acquisition; enhanced auditory perception; low-level processing; screen exposure
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Linguistics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10214640
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