Acoustic sound analysis in children with autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is congenital or presents in the first years of life. In these children, there are a number of characteristic features such as inability to develop relationships with people, extreme coldness, delay in speech development, non-communicative use after speech development, insistence on maintaining routine, and simple repetition. There may also be some difficulty with emotionless, monotonous speech and articulation. The aim of this study is to reveal the differences in voice characteristics by making voice analysis of children diagnosed with atypical autism, Asperger's syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder. 100 individuals between the ages of 4-14 participated in the study. The individuals participating in the study were told the phonemes /a/, /e/, /i/ for 2 seconds. Electroglottography device, CSL and Sona-Match program were used. Parameters such as fundamental frequency (F0), formant frequency, vocal shimmer and vocal jitter percentages were evaluated by voice analysis. As a result of the analysis, there was no significant difference between the mean F0 values of individuals aged 4-12 years, while there was a significant difference between the genders at the age of 13-14 years. It was determined that there was no significant relationship between height and weight and F0 in both genders. It is seen that the F0 value decreases depending on the age groups and the girls have a higher F0 value than the boys. When the data obtained were evaluated according to height, weight and gender, it was determined that there was no significant relationship between height and weight and F0 in both genders. It is thought that examining the changes in voice parameters with more participants will be a big step in accepting the specific change in parameters as a diagnostic criterion. Keywords: Autism, voice analysis, formant frequency, fundamental frequency.