Assessment of speech- and fine-motor coordination and their link to language in children with autism spectrum disorder

自闭症谱系障碍儿童的言语和精细运动协调及其与语言的联系的评估

• 批准号: 10381787
• 负责人: Tanya Talkar
• 金额: $ 3.38万
• 依托单位: HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-09-30 至 2023-09-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10381787
• 关键词: Abnormal coordination; Acoustics; Affect; Algorithms; Articulators; Biological Markers; Child; Clinical; Clinical assessments; Cognitive; Communication; Complex; Coupling; Dependence; Discrimination; Enrollment; Evaluation; Eye Movements; Face; Future; Goals; Handwriting; Individual; Intervention; Language; Larynx; Link; Machine Learning; Major Depressive Disorder; Measures; Modality; Modeling; Monitor; Motor; Motor Skills; Movement; Muscle; Neurodevelopmental Disorder; Outcome Assessment; Parkinson Disease; Pattern; Physiological; Pilot Projects; Population; Production; Protocols documentation; Proxy; Research; Series; Severities; Shapes; Speech; Structure; System; Techniques; Time; Training; United States; Work; autism spectrum disorder; autistic children; behavior measurement; clinical predictors; improved; individuals with autism spectrum disorder; insight; language outcome; mild traumatic brain injury; motor impairment; nervous system disorder; novel; oculomotor; respiratory; sensorimotor system; social; visual tracking

PROJECT SUMMARY Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with motor difficulties in speech production and fine-motor tasks. Assessments of motor impairments, however, can be subjective and miss subtle and specific abnormalities. Therefore, there is a need to develop objective measures for clinicians to assess and understand speech- and fine-motor impairments in individuals with ASD. In addition, recent research suggests that difficulties with speech production, fine-motor, and oculo-motor tasks may contribute to language difficulties in ASD. The purpose of this project is to develop objective measures of speech- and fine-motor coordination in children with ASD, and to characterize the relationship between motor modalities and expressive language in ASD using these measures. We will focus on three speech subsystems: articulatory, laryngeal, and respiratory, as well as handwriting and eye movement. In a pilot study we conducted at the Lurie Center for Autism, we utilized novel coordination features developed in our lab to highlight lower complexity of coordination, or higher coupling, between and within speech subsystems in highly verbal children with ASD as compared to neurotypical controls. The analyses also indicated lower complexity of coordination during handwriting in children with ASD, suggesting there may be similar underlying mechanisms across these motor systems. In the proposed project, we will extend upon these promising results, evaluating measures of motor coordination using low-level features derived from speech, handwriting, and eye movement tasks completed by children with ASD and neurotypical controls. We will employ acoustic-to-articulatory inversion techniques to extract more physiologically accurate vocal tract articulator movements and coordination. Aim 1 uses measures of coordination to characterize the complexity of speech- and fine-motor coordination in children with ASD. We will also determine the features which provide the highest discriminatory ability between children with ASD and neurotypical controls using machine learning models. We expect that identification of patterns of complexity and important discriminatory features will provide a better understanding of the dependencies across and within motor subsystems, which could be used for objective assessment and tracking of motor difficulties in ASD. Aim 2 characterizes the relationship between speech- and fine-motor skills and expressive language ability. We will evaluate correlations and regressions between measures of motor coordination and scores on assessments of expressive language. We believe that motor tasks and features which show high correlations with evaluations of language ability will provide further insight into how motor modalities are associated with language difficulties in ASD. In summary, this proposal aims to quantify and understand speech- and fine-motor coordination challenges in ASD using objective measures of motor coordination, and aims to characterize the relationship between speech- and fine- motor subsystems and expressive language in ASD. This project works towards our long-term goal of developing a platform to assess, understand, and track motor and communication challenges in children with ASD.

项目摘要 自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）是一种与运动困难相关的神经发育障碍 生产和精细运动任务。但是，评估运动障碍可能是主观的，而错过了微妙的 和特定异常。因此，有必要制定客观措施供临床医生评估和 了解ASD患者的言语和细运动障碍。此外，最近的研究表明 语音产生，精力机构和Oculo-Motor任务的困难可能会导致语言困难 在ASD中。该项目的目的是制定语音和精细运动协调的客观度量 有ASD的孩子，并表征运动方式与表达语言之间的关系 ASD使用这些措施。我们将重点介绍三个语音子系统：关节，喉和呼吸系统， 以及手写和眼睛的动作。在我们在Lurie自闭症中心进行的试点研究中，我们 利用我们实验室开发的新型协调功能，以突出协调的较低复杂性，或更高 与神经型的耦合，高度言语儿童之间的语音子系统之间和内部的耦合 控件。分析还表明，在ASD儿童的手写过程中协调的复杂性较低， 表明这些电机系统可能存在类似的潜在机制。在拟议的项目中 我们将扩展这些有希望的结果，使用低级特征评估运动协调的度量 源自ASD和神经型儿童完成的语音，手写和眼动任务 控件。我们将采用声学到明显的反转技术来提取更精确的生理上的 声带铰接器的运动和协调。 AIM 1使用协调的度量来表征 ASD儿童的语音和精力协调的复杂性。我们还将确定功能 使用ASD和神经型对照的儿童提供最高的歧视能力 机器学习模型。我们期望识别复杂性和重要歧视性的模式 功能将更好地了解运动子系统之间和内部的依赖项， 可用于客观评估和跟踪ASD的运动困难。 AIM 2表征 言语和精细运动技能和表达语言能力之间的关系。我们将评估相关性 在评估表达语言评估的运动协调措施和分数之间的回归。 我们认为，与语言能力评估相关的电动机任务和功能将会 提供有关运动方式与ASD中语言困难如何相关联的进一步了解。总之， 该提案旨在量化和理解ASD中的语音和精细运动协调挑战 运动协调的客观度量，并旨在表征语音和罚款之间的关系 运动子系统和ASD的表达语言。该项目致力于我们的长期目标 一个平台，用于评估ASD儿童的电动机和沟通挑战。