Search Abstracts | Symposia | Slide Sessions | Poster Sessions
Neural Signatures of Gesture-Speech Integration in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An fNIRS Investigation
Poster Session A, Friday, September 12, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm, Field House
Bashar M. Farran1, Stephen J. Sheinkopf1, Laura M. Morett1; 1University of Missouri-Columbia
Effective communication relies on the integration of multimodal cues such as speech and co-occurring gestures, a process supported by a distributed frontotemporal network including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). Deficits in gesture-speech integration are well documented in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), yet the neural mechanisms underlying these impairments are unclear. The present study employed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the neural dynamics of gesture-speech integration in children with ASD and age-matched typically developing (TD) peers. Participants (ASD: n=15; TD: n=15; age 5–10 years) were presented with stimuli in four conditions: speech-only (S), gesture-only (G), congruent gesture-speech pairings (CG+S), and incongruent gesture-speech pairings (IG+S). Hemodynamic responses, indexed by changes in oxyhemoglobin (Oxy-Hb) and deoxyhemoglobin concentrations, were recorded from bilateral IFG and pSTS. Compared to TD children, children with ASD exhibited significantly lower increases in Oxy-Hb concentrations, reflecting reduced functional activation, in left IFG and pSTS across all conditions. Critically, TD children showed greater increases in Oxy-Hb concentrations in left IFG and PSTS, reflecting increased functional activation, for incongruent compared to congruent gesture-speech pairings, indicating sensitivity to cross-modal semantic congruency. In contrast, children with ASD displayed minimal differences in Oxy-Hb concentrations between congruent and incongruent gesture-speech pairings, indicating reduced sensitivity to cross-modal semantic congruency. These findings provide converging evidence that diminished functional activation in left IFG and pSTS contributes to atypical gesture-speech integration in ASD. By clarifying the roles of IFG and pSTS in gesture-speech integration deficits in ASD, the results highlight their potential as biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment of gesture-speech integration impairments and as neurobiological targets for intervention strategies aimed at enhancing communication in children with ASD.
Topic Areas: Signed Language and Gesture, Disorders: Developmental