高功能自閉症兒童情緒語調的表達

The Verbal Intonation of Expressive Emotion in Elementary School Children with High-Function Autism

本研究旨在比較高功能自閉症男童和性別、年齡配對的正常發展兒童，情緒語調表達的聲學和知覺辨識特性的差異，以瞭解自閉症兒童以口語表達情緒語調的能力。以自發唸讀故事和模仿示範語音兩種方式蒐集不同情緒語調的語料，以聲學軟體PRAAT 分析口語語句的平均基本頻率、基本頻率範圍、時長和平均振幅，以瞭解兩組兒童表達情緒語調的聲學差異，並以E-prime 測量情緒語調在知覺上被正確判斷的比率和情緒類別研判的所需時間。研究發現在自發性說話時，自閉症組情緒類別的表達正確率明顯低於正常兒童，其中以「生氣」情緒的正確率最低，且聽話者必須花更多的時間才能正確辨識自閉症組所表達的「生氣」和「難過」情緒。在聲學方面，自閉症組的情緒表達較缺乏語調起伏變化，且無法掌握「難過」時長最長、「生氣」時長最短的聲學特性。在仿說時，相較於正常發展兒童，自閉症組的情緒類別表達正確率仍較低，且整體音調較低，較缺乏起伏變化，但在時長方面則未出現異常。結果顯示自閉症兒童對不同情緒表達的聲學特性掌握較正常發展兒童差，在提供一次聽覺回饋的仿說情境中，其情緒語調表達仍不佳。未來研究可以嘗試以視覺策略並強調語調聲學特性的方式增進自閉症兒童對不同情緒語調的表達能力。

The main purpose of this study was to compare the acoustical characteristics, perceptual accuracy, reaction time of judgments and accuracy of “emotional intonation” displayed by children with High-Function autism (HFA). The subjects were HFA and normal students between the ages of 8 and 12 who live in the Taipei City and County area. The subjects were divided into two groups, the HFA students and the controls, which were matched for age and gender. Speech samples of the students were elicited by having them tell a story spontaneously and also imitate what they heard on an audio tape. These samples were then analyzed by means of the speech analysis program PRAAT, which involves the quantifying of acoustical features (mean fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency range, duration and mean amplitude). The identification accuracy and reaction time of emotional-category judgments of individual subjects were measured using Eprime perceptual software. As showed in the evaluation results for the subjects' spontaneous tasks, autistic subjects performed with a more narrow fundamental frequency range, had longer reaction times in judging “sad” and “angry” emotions, and had less accuracy in discriminating emotional categories as compared with the control group. In the imitation task, autistic subjects also performed more poorly than the controls on the fundamental frequency range and subjective ratings, but they performed well in terms of duration. Overall, this study suggested that autistic children had an impoverished ability to express emotional intonations, and the one-time model-imitation task did not improve their ability. It is finally suggested that future studies may apply the visualization strategy and emphasize the crucial acoustic features of various emotional intonations when teaching autistic children to use proper verbal intonations to express their emotions.