# Looking to and Processing of Audiovisual Speech in Infants at Risk for Autism

> **NIH NIH F31** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $31,266

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Understanding individual differences in language understanding and use in autism is a top priority of
research, as the acquisition of language early in life has been consistently linked with long-term outcomes in
individuals with autism. Typically developing children look to visual cues of speech (i.e., mouth movements),
early in life during language acquisition, and visual cues facilitate speech processing across the lifespan.
Looking to visual speech cues has been associated with language ability, but the neural mechanism underlying
this link is not well understood. Multisensory speech processing may explain individual differences in language
understanding and use. Electroencephalography (EEG) research has illustrated a boost in speech processing
efficiency in response to audiovisual speech via a decrease, or suppression, in the amplitude of the event-
related potential (ERP) signal in response to audiovisual speech versus auditory-only speech. Children with
autism show highly variable amplitude suppression, and the degree of amplitude suppression is associated
with language ability. However, it is unclear at present how early in development this phenomenon emerges
and whether it explains observed links between looking to audiovisual speech and language understanding
and use. This dissertation project seeks to evaluate the emergence of amplitude suppression and to
statistically test whether speech processing efficiency mediates the association between early looking to
audiovisual speech and language understanding and use in infants at increased likelihood for autism. A low
demand measure of speech processing with the temporal precision necessary to evaluate immediate
responses to speech (EEG) and a state-of-the-art measure of eye gaze with high precision to attentional focus
(eye-tracking) will be used. We hypothesize that relatively low, general population level likelihood infants will
display amplitude suppression at 12-18 months of age. Additionally, we hypothesize that infants at increased
familial likelihood for autism on average will display less amplitude suppression compared to their lower
likelihood peers. However, based on previous observations of variable audiovisual speech processing in
autism, we expect to see a wide range of individual differences in the amount of amplitude suppression
experienced in response to audiovisual speech. We anticipate that the degree of amplitude suppression will
explain the relation between looking to audiovisual speech and language understanding and use.
IMPACT: If our hypotheses are born out, the proposed work will yield empirical support for a novel framework
of language learning in early development and improve our understanding of the neural mechanisms
underlying differential language development in infants at elevated likelihood for autism and communication
disorders. This improved understanding of early language development has the potential to facilitate early
identification of...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10386545
- **Project number:** 1F31DC020129-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Kacie Dunham-Carr
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $31,266
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-01-01 → 2023-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10386545

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10386545, Looking to and Processing of Audiovisual Speech in Infants at Risk for Autism (1F31DC020129-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10386545. Licensed CC0.

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