Speech Rate and Salient Syllables Position in Spontaneous Speech of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The study employs a semi-automatic approach to analyze speech rate in spoken Italian, aiming to identify acoustic parameters associated with perceptual atypicality in the speech of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research focuses on a dataset comprising recordings of semi-spontaneous interactions, in comparison with interviews of Typically Developing (TD) children. A detailed examination of speech rate variability is conducted, progressing from assessing overall speech rate in conversation to the analysis of individual utterances. Furthermore, salient syllables within utterances are identified using an automatic procedure through the Salient Detector Praat script and analyzed for stress position. The study highlights specific speech style, including rapid-telegraphic and reading-performed speech. Additionally, it reveals a higher speech rate with the increasing length of utterance when <10 syllables; conversely, a speech rate diminishing in 20-25 syllables utterances, suggesting potential difficulty in producing longer utterances associated with increased cognitive load.