Speech and prosody characteristics of adolescents and adults with high-functioning autism and Asperger Syndrome

Speech and prosody-voice profiles for 15 male speakers with High-Functionin g Autism (HFA) and 15 male speakers with Asperger syndrome (AS) were compar ed to one another and to profiles for 53 typically developing male speakers in the same 10- to 50-years age range. Compared to the typically developin g speakers, significantly more participants in both the HFA and AS groups h ad residual articulation distortion errors, uncodable utterances due to dis course constraints, and utterances coded as inappropriate in the domains of phrasing, stress, and resonance. Speakers with AS were significantly more voluble than speakers with HFA, but otherwise there were few statistically significant differences between the two groups of speakers with pervasive d evelopmental disorders. Discussion focuses on perceptual-motor and social s ources of differences in the prosody-voice findings for individuals with Pe rvasive Developmental Disorders as compared with findings for typical speak ers, including comment on the grammatical, pragmatic, and affective aspects of prosody.