There's quite a lot in the literature on autistic spectrum about pitch and inflection as a factor in understanding social communication and prosody as a diagnostic characteristic, but I canniot find any literature connecting the two.
Prosody is about vocal rhythms. Some people on the spectrum speak in a montotone, or have an unorthdox modulation of voice. But this never seems to go further than diagnosis.
I wondered if variations in pitch and inflection are crucial to both speach and hearing amongst people on the spectrum.
I lose understanding if there is any background, and I also seem to lose my "translator" at times and cannot comprehend anything being said to me. But I also have problems when speaking conveying what I'm trying to say. Partly I think this is because I'm tending to spit out sentences because I'm dividing my time between "reading between the lines" about what was said and deciding what to say. So I tend to come out fast and not properly modulated and sometimes too loud.
The inflection and modulation of speech is important, both in emphasising words such as the verb or subject or object which affects how meaning is understood or picking up emotional or other non-verbal cues.
I wonder if people on the spectrum are bad at both interpreting pitch modulation and inflection and putting the correct modulation/inflection into speech.
Does NAS know of any studies linking hearing and speech in the context of speech modulation? Has anyone else any insight on this?
