Affective Prosody Recognition and Auditory Intervention for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

March 15, 2022 updated by: Ming Lui, Hong Kong Baptist University

Examining Affective Prosody Recognition Among Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders and the Effectiveness of an Auditory Intervention Using a Mobile App

The proposed study aims to examine the abilities of children with ASD to recognize emotional tones of voice - also known as affective prosody - as compared to typically developing (TD) children. Past findings are mixed, and although some studies have found intact performance among individuals with ASD, it is possible that they rely on different underlying mechanisms in processing affective prosody compared to TD children. Our second objective is therefore to examine whether children with ASD have a stronger reliance on psychoacoustic abilities - including rapid auditory processing and pitch direction recognition - to identify emotional stimuli, as compared to TD children. Lastly, the investigators will study whether auditory training targeting psychoacoustic abilities would improve affective prosody recognition among children with ASD. Sixty children with ASD and 60 TD children between 10 to 12 years old will be recruited. Participants' psychoacoustic abilities and affective prosody recognition will be assessed in the pretest. The investigators hypothesize that psychoacoustic abilities are stronger predictors of affective prosody recognition among children with ASD than among TD children. The ASD children will then be randomly assigned to two groups: one group will receive auditory training; the other will be an active control group that receives non-auditory training. Both groups will receive 12 hours of training via a mobile app. The children will be assessed again in the posttest.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Participants will sign an informed consent statement prior to arriving at the lab. Participants with ASD will be randomly assigned into either the auditory training group (Group 1) or the active control group (Group 2). Participants without ASD will be assigned to the typically developed group (Group 3). Groups 1 and 2 will complete all stages of the study, whereas Group 3 will only complete the pre-test stage.

Pre-test: Researchers will assess participants' affective prosody recognition ability and psychoacoustic ability. The tests will be conducted in a sound attenuated lab located at Hong Kong Baptist University. The tests include an affective prosody recognition test, a pitch discrimination recognition test, a rapid auditory processing test, and a theory of mind test.

Intervention Training: Participants will be required to partake in an intervention training program. The program will adopt training exercises provided by Posit Science - BrainHQ. The participants will be asked to complete a training session of 15-30 minutes each day for 8 weeks, arriving at a total of at least 8 hours of training. The progress of intervention training will be closely monitored by the research team.

Post-test: Participant will be asked to return to the lab for post-test assessment of the same tests, and complete an autism assessment (ADOS-2) and intelligence assessment (WISC-IV) conducted by a clinical psychologist, as well as a non-verbal Intelligence test (KBIT-2) conducted by a trained researcher.

Note: For ethical and fairness purposes, participants from Group 2 will be allowed to access the intervention training after Post-test.

To encourage completion of the intervention training program, participants who successfully complete 8 hours of training will be offered a monetary reward as a token of appreciation.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

120

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Hong Kong
      • Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
        • Centre of Learning Science

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

8 years to 14 years (CHILD)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Cantonese as mother language
  • IQ > 70
  • Children with autism spectrum disorder

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Children diagnosed with dyslexia
  • Prior diagnosis of mental disorders

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
  • Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Auditory Training Group
12 hours of psychoacoustic training over 8 weeks
Behavioral: Auditory Training
A series of psychoacoustic training exercises through Posit Science - BrainHQ (mobile app or web-browser version). Each training is approximately 2 minutes
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: Other Training Group
12 hours of non-psychoacoustic training over 8 weeks
Behavioral: Non-auditory training
A series of non-psychoacoustic training exercises through Posit Science - BrainHQ (mobile app or web-browser version). Each training is approximately 2 minutes
NO_INTERVENTION: TD Group

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Accuracy of Affective Prosody Recognition
Time Frame: Before & after 8-week intervention program
Measures the change in the participants' ability in identifying emotional tone of words or sentences (sound stimuli). The participant will be tested before intervention and after intervention. For each test, participants will listen to word or sentences, which are pre-recorded by voice actors, then identify the emotional tone (happy, anger, fear, sad, or neutral) of the stimuli by pressing the corresponding keys on the keyboard. The accuracy of response will be used to assess the participants' ability.
Before & after 8-week intervention program
Change in Ability in Discriminating Pitch Differences
Time Frame: Before & after 8-week intervention program
Measures the change the participants' ability in discriminating the pitch between two tones using the Pitch Discrimination Recognition task. The participant will be tested before intervention and after intervention. For each test, participants will listen to two tones and will be required to identify which tone has the higher pitch. The pitch difference between the two tones will change using a "two-down one-up" mechanism with a step-wise adjustment, which means the pitch difference will decrease every two consecutive correct responses or increase for every incorrect response. For every reversal (change from decrease to increase or vice versa) of stimuli, the latest pitch difference will be recorded. The average pitch difference of the final 8 reversals will be used to assess the participants' pitch discrimination ability. Lesser difference indicate stronger ability in discriminating the pitch between two tones.
Before & after 8-week intervention program
Change in Accuracy in Processing Rapid Presentation of Two Tones
Time Frame: Before & after 8-week intervention program
Measures the change in the participants' ability in processing two rapid tones using the Rapid Auditory Processing task. The participant will be tested before intervention and after intervention. Two complex tones with fundamental frequency of 100Hz (Low tone) and 305Hz (High tone), each 75ms in duration, will be used throughout the entire test. For each trial, the participant will listen to two tones at ISI of 4ms, 8ms, or 30ms. The participants will be required to replicate the sequence of High or Low tones in each trial as quickly as possible. The accuracy of replicating the sequence will be used to assess the participants' ability.
Before & after 8-week intervention program

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Hong Kong Baptist University

Collaborators

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Education University of Hong Kong

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Ann M Lui, PhD, Hong Kong Baptist University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (ACTUAL)

September 25, 2020

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

December 31, 2021

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

December 31, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 1, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 8, 2020

First Posted (ACTUAL)

June 11, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

March 31, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 15, 2022

Last Verified

March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • HKBU 12604418

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Anonymous individual participant data will be uploaded to an publicly accessible database should the results were published as a journal article.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Data will be provided when a journal article is published for indefinite time

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Access to the data will be made public. The link to the database will be provided in the journal article.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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