{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,13]],"date-time":"2026-06-13T18:01:23Z","timestamp":1781373683883,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":68,"publisher":"Wiley","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,4]],"date-time":"2023-05-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1683158400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/termsAndConditions#vor"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["onlinelibrary.wiley.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Intl J Lang &amp; Comm Disor"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,11]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>Atypical speech prosody has been commonly found among autistic children. Yet it remains unknown whether prosody impairment originates from poor pitch ability in general or whether it is the result of the difficulty in understanding and using prosody for communicative purposes.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims<\/jats:title><jats:p>To investigate whether native Mandarin Chinese\u2010speaking autistic children with intellectual impairment were able to accurately produce native lexical tones, which are pitch patterns that distinguish word meaning lexically and serve little social purpose.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods &amp; Procedures<\/jats:title><jats:p>Using a picture\u2010naming task, thirteen 8\u201313\u2010year\u2010old Mandarin Chinese\u2010speaking autistic children with intellectual impairment were tested on their production of Chinese lexical tones. Chronical age\u2010matched typically developing (TD) children were included as the control group. Perceptual assessment and phonetic analyses were conducted with the produced lexical tones.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Outcomes &amp; Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>The majority of the lexical tones produced by the autistic children were perceived as accurate by adult judges. Phonetic analysis of the pitch contours found no significant difference between the two groups, and the autistic children and TD children used the phonetic features in comparable ways when differentiating the lexical tones. However, the lexical tone accuracy rate was lower among the autistic children than among the TDs, and the larger individual difference was observed among the autistic children than the TD children.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions &amp; Implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>These results indicate that autistic children are able to produce the global contours of the lexical tones, and pitch deficits do not seem to qualify as a core feature of autism.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>What this paper adds<\/jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>What is already known on the subject<\/jats:title><jats:p><jats:list list-type=\"bullet\">\n<jats:list-item><jats:p>Atypical prosody has been considered a maker of the speech of autistic children, and meta\u2010analysis found a significant difference in mean pitch and pitch range between TD children and autistic children. Yet it remains unknown whether the pitch deficits are the result of impaired perceptual\u2013motoric ability or if they reflect failure in learning sentential prosody, which requires an understanding of the interlocutors\u2019 mind. In addition, research on pitch ability of autistic children with intellectual disabilities has been scarce, and whether these children are able to produce pitch variation is largely unknown.<\/jats:p><\/jats:list-item><\/jats:list><\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>What this paper adds to existing knowledge<\/jats:title><jats:p><jats:list list-type=\"bullet\">\n<jats:list-item><jats:p>We tested native Mandarin Chinese autistic children with intellectual impairment on their production of native lexical tones. The lexical tones in Chinese are pitch variations realized on individual syllables that distinguish lexical meaning, but they do not serve social pragmatic purposes. We found that although these autistic children had only developed limited spoken language, the majority of their lexical tones were perceived as accurate. They were able to use the phonetic features in comparable ways with the TD children when distinguishing the lexical tones.<\/jats:p><\/jats:list-item><\/jats:list><\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?<\/jats:title><jats:p><jats:list list-type=\"bullet\">\n<jats:list-item><jats:p>It seems unlikely that pitch processing at the lexical level is fundamentally impaired in autistic children, and pitch deficits do not seem to qualify for a core feature of their speech. Practitioners should be cautious when using pitch production as a clinical marker for autistic children.<\/jats:p><\/jats:list-item><\/jats:list><\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1111\/1460-6984.12881","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,4]],"date-time":"2023-05-04T12:58:41Z","timestamp":1683205121000},"page":"1912-1926","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Successful lexical tone production of Mandarin Chinese autistic children with intellectual impairment"],"prefix":"10.1111","volume":"58","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9741-9179","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ao","family":"Chen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology Beijing Language and Culture University  Beijing China"},{"name":"School of Communication Science Beijing Language and Culture University  Beijing China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ru","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Psychology Beijing Language and Culture University  Beijing China"},{"name":"The Children's Hospital Zhejiang University School of Medicine  Hangzhou Zhejiang China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Gan","family":"Huang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Linguistics Chinese Academy of Social Sciences  Beijing China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Aijun","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Linguistics Chinese Academy of Social Sciences  Beijing China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hintat","family":"Cheung","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Audiology and Speech\u2010Language Pathology Asia University  Taichung, Taiwan China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"311","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_7_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0305000918000272"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0305000919000795"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4757-4806-2_7"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01495060"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0022\u20103514.70.3.614"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1162\/089892903321208169"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_8_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1469\u20107610.2011.02508.x"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/imhj.21442"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_10_1","first-page":"121","article-title":"Tone and intonation in Chinese","volume":"4","author":"Chao Y.R.","year":"1933","journal-title":"Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_11_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10803\u2010021\u201005123\u20104"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_12_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3109\/17549500903469980"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/00238309010440020301"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_14_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01538281"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0142716409090201"},{"key":"e_1_2_7_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Diehl J. 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