Categorizing the cries of infants with ASD versus typically developing infants: A study of adult accuracy and reaction time

Background The cries of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) contain atypical acoustic features. The cries of typically developing infants elicit automatic adult responses, but little is known about how the atypical cries of children with ASD affect the speed with which adults process them. Method. We used a reaction time (RT) categorical task to analyze adults’ categorization of typically developing cries, atypical (ASD) cries, mammalian animal cries, and environmental noise control sounds. 40 nonparent women (M age = 27 years) were instructed to categorize acoustic stimuli as human infant cries or non-human sounds as quickly as possible. Results. The RTs for correctly categorizing the cries of children with ASD (M = 831 ms, SEM = 27) were slower than RTs for typically developing child cries (M = 680 ms, SEM = 6) as well as mammalian animal cries (801 ms, SEM = 11) and environmental noise control sounds (M = 692 ms, SEM = 10). Conclusions. This difference may reflect difficulties in adults’ perceiving and processing atypical cries of children with ASD, and the findings may have implications for the parent-child relationship and for the quality of care children with ASD receive.