A study demonstrating that the acoustic features of emotional expression in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) differ from those of typically developing (TD) children has been published in the psychiatric journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. This research was conducted in collaboration with Shizuoka University and Nagasaki University.

Targeting 5-year-old children, the study measured and compared the range of voice pitch variation (f0 range) during neutral, positive (liking), and negative (disliking) emotional expressions in both ASD and TD groups. The results showed that children with ASD exhibited a wider f0 range than TD children in neutral situations, but showed little variation across different emotional contexts. In particular, in positive situations, the f0 range was found to be negatively correlated with the severity of autistic traits.

This study may contribute to the development of objective voice-based indicators for evaluating emotional expression characteristics in children with ASD, as well as to improving communication support methods.

Okuizumi, D., Terada, K., Ishii, A., Ohmoto, Y., Shimizu, H., Imamura, A., Iwanaga, R. & Kumazaki, H. (2025). Acoustic features of emotional expression in 5-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1444675