Sung speech training improves prosodic focus marking in a nondominant language in children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Introduction: Music and speech prosody share notable parallels, and music-based interventions have shown promise in fostering language development and social responsiveness. Song-based training, leveraging acoustic similarities between song and speech, is especially effective. This study examined whether short-term song-based training could enhance prosodic focus-marking in nondominant languages for autistic children. Specifically, it explored improvements in focus-marking strategies, such as on-focus expansion (OFE) and post-focus compression (PFC), and the number of prosodic correlates used. Method: A short-term sung speech training intervention was designed, aligning melodic patterns with Mandarin's prosodic focus marking. Eighteen native Cantonese-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder underwent short-term sung speech training, and their pre- and posttraining performance was compared with two control groups: 18 Cantonese-speaking and 20 Mandarin-speaking typically developing children. Comparisons were made across participant groups as well as within the autistic group before and after the training. Results: Sung speech training improved OFE use, particularly in fundamental frequency range, for noncontrastive focus marking in autistic children. Effects on PFC were less evident, and the training primarily enhanced OFE rather than increasing the number of prosodic correlates used. Control Cantonese-speaking participants showed no comparable improvements. Conclusion: These findings highlight the potential of short-term, perception-based sung speech training as a supplementary intervention for improving prosodic focus marking in trilingual autistic children's nondominant languages, indicating positive cross-domain effects on speech-processing abilities. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.30347731