Pitch pattern analysis in speech of children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a multifaceted neurodevelopmental condition. Atypical communication mostly occurs in tandem with ASD. We compared voice pitch of 16 Marathi children and adolescents with ASD of age of 7 to 18 with 27 Typically Developing (TD). Speech samples have been recorded and stored in .wav format with sampling frequency of 48000 Hz. For analysis we used PRAAT, a program for speech analysis, manipulation and synthesis. We divided the ASD and TD group into total 4 groups on basis of age and gender for comparison. We found that differences in voice pitch are present in these comparison groups, and male ASD group have more pitch variation than respective comparison groups. In future we look forward to include more ASD participants in study to increase the Marathi speech database for ASD.