Do Babies with Autism Spectrum Disorder Tune In to Their Moms Talking? Scientists Says They Aren't

We all recognize baby talk. It's an adorable form of early communication and bonding between infants and their parents that people often mistake for cute gibberish. Scientists from the University of California- San Diego analyzed whether infants diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder listen to their mother's talk. A recent study suggests that their brains often don't.

In 2021, roughly 1 in 44 children in America are diagnosed with ASD, says the CDC. Further, in 2018 data, boys are approximately four times more likely to be diagnosed with ASD than girls.

Infants with ASD and Their Response to Baby Talk

(Photo: Polina Tankilevitch from Pexels)

According to an article by EurekAlert, motherese is a simplified melodic speech that parents often use to communicate with their newly born infants and young toddlers. Instead of a horse, parents may say horsie, the dog becomes doggie, and mom & dad become mama and dada. A parent's tendency to speak in such a way cuts across cultures and is universal.

Previous researchers have shown that newborns prefer to listen to this form of speech, formally known as infant-directed speech, and is more effective in holding an infant's attention. More importantly, this form of sing-song conversation is a vital component of emotional bonding between parent and child while fostering a positive learning experience.

Early signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD in children are a reduced response to baby talk speech and generally present a challenge in sustained attention towards social information.

A recent study published by researchers in the journal Nature Human Behavior, titled "Neural Responses To Affective Speech, Including Motherese, Map Onto Clinical And Social Eye Tracking Profiles In Toddlers With ASD," utilized a vast number of techniques to locate the specific regions of infant's brains responsible for their response to baby talk.

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Why ASD Infants Don't Tune In to Their Parents' Baby Talking?

Senior author of the recent study, Eric Courchesne, a Ph.D. and professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine at UC San Diego, says that the recent study combines state-of-the-art brain imaging, clinical testing, and eye-tracking to open doors towards precision medicine aimed at autism. He explains that the approach gives new insights into the complex relationship between a developing brain in children and autism, especially in terms of objective information on social attention and social preference.

Courchesne adds that researchers can peer into the possible neural impact for children with ASD who fail to pay attention to social information for the first time.

Kare Pierce Ph.D., co-author and professor of neurosciences explains that the study concludes that the lack of behavioral attention to baby talk in children with ASD involves impaired development of the child's natural temporal cortical neural system, which under normal conditions would automatically respond to their parents especially when using such an emotional speech pattern.