Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 May 1;8(5):e61402.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061402. Print 2013.

Do parentese prosody and fathers' involvement in interacting facilitate social interaction in infants who later develop autism?

David Cohen  1 , Raquel S Cassel, Catherine Saint-Georges, Ammar Mahdhaoui, Marie-Christine Laznik, Fabio Apicella, Pietro Muratori, Sandra Maestro, Filippo Muratori, Mohamed Chetouani
Affiliations

Do parentese prosody and fathers' involvement in interacting facilitate social interaction in infants who later develop autism?

David Cohen et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Whether development of autism impacts the interactive process between an infant and his/her parents remains an unexplored issue.

Methodology and principal findings: Using computational analysis taking into account synchronic behaviors and emotional prosody (parentese), we assessed the course of infants' responses to parents' type of speech in home movies from typically developing (TD) infants and infants who will subsequently develop autism aged less than 18 months. Our findings indicate: that parentese was significantly associated with infant responses to parental vocalizations involving orientation towards other people and with infant receptive behaviours; that parents of infants developing autism displayed more intense solicitations that were rich in parentese; that fathers of infants developing autism spoke to their infants more than fathers of TD infants; and that fathers' vocalizations were significantly associated with intersubjective responses and active behaviours in infants who subsequently developed autism.

Conclusion: The parents of infants who will later develop autism change their interactive pattern of behaviour by both increasing parentese and father's involvement in interacting with infants; both are significantly associated with infant's social responses. We stress the possible therapeutic implications of these findings and its implication for Dean Falk's theory regarding pre-linguistic evolution in early hominins.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Diagram flow of the study.
TD = Typical Development; AD = Autism Disorder; SES = Socio Economic Status; IQ = Intellectual quotient; CARS = Children Autism Rating Scale; CBCL = Child Behavior Check List; SD = Standard Deviation; CG = Care Giver; GLMM = Generalised Linear Mixed Model; *IQ in children with AD was based on the Griffiths Mental Developmental Scale or the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Proportion of parentese based on acoustic characteristics in mothers' and fathers' vocalisation of TD infants or infants with AD (2A); in caregiver Regulation Up and all vocalisation whether the infant had TD or AD (2B).
TD = Typical Development; AD = Autism Disorder; CG = Care Giver; Reg Up = Regulation Up; All voc = All vocalisations.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Infants who will later develop autism: pathologic trajectory of infant's behaviours and changes in parents' stimulation to adapt to their infant.
In this figure, we summarised early interaction between infants who will subsequently develop autism and their parents. Infants show less intersubjective behaviours and orienting towards peopleformula image. Parents adapt their behaviour by using more regulation upformula image and touchingformula image . Regulation Up/Down is defined as caregiver vocalisation that modulates the child's arousal and mood, to either excite (reg-up) or calm (reg-down). Regulation up is full of parenteseformula image, and this specific prosody appears to be significantly associated with the overall level of infants' responses, specifically infants' responses to parental vocalizations involving orientation towards people and receptive behavioursformula image. At the third semester (S3), compared to typically developing children, fathers of infants who will later develop autism appear to commit themselves moreformula image and the vocalisations of fathers of children with AD are significantly associated with infant's intersubjective responses and seeking peopleformula image.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Stone W, Hoffman EL, Lewis S, Ousley O (1994) Early recognition of autism: Parental reports vs. clinical observation. Arch Paediatrics Adolesc Med 148: 174–9. - PubMed
    1. Saint-Georges C, Cassel RS, Cohen D, Chetouani M, Laznik MC, et al. (2010) What studies of family home movies can teach us about autistic infants: A literature review. Res Autism Spectr Disord 4(3): 355–66.
    1. Werner E, Dawson G, Osterling J, Dinno N (2000) Brief report: Recognition of autism spectrum disorder before one year of age: A retrospective study based on home videotapes. J Autism Dev Disord 30(2): 157–62. - PubMed
    1. Guinchat V, Chamak B, Bonniau B, Bodeau N, Perisse D, et al. (2012) Very early signs of autism reported by parents include many concerns not specific to autism criteria. Res Autism Spectr Disord 6: 589–601.
    1. Zwaigenbaum L, Bryson S, Rogers T, Roberts W, Brian J, et al. (2005) Behavioral manifestations of autism in the first year of life. Int J Dev Neurosci 23(2–3): 143–52. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources