Abstract Conversational or “co‐speech” gestures play an important role in communication, facilitating turntaking, providing visuospatial information, clarifying subtleties of emphasis, and other pragmatic cues. Consistent with other pragmatic language deficits, individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are said to produce fewer conversational gestures, as specified in many diagnostic measures. Surprisingly, while research shows fewer deictic gestures in young children with ASD, there is a little empirical evidence addressing other forms of gesture. The discrepancy between clinical and empirical observations may reflect impairments unrelated to frequency, such as gesture quality or integration with speech. Adolescents with high‐functioning ASD ( n =15), matched on age, gender, and IQ to 15 typically developing (TD) adolescents, completed a narrative task to assess the spontaneous production of speech and gesture. Naïve observers rated the stories for communicative quality. Overall, the ASD group's stories were rated as less clear and engaging. Although utterance and gesture rates were comparable, the ASD group's gestures were less closely synchronized with the co‐occurring speech, relative to control participants. This gesture–speech synchrony specifically impacted communicative quality across participants. Furthermore, while story ratings were associated with gesture count in TD adolescents, no such relationship was observed in adolescents with ASD, suggesting that gestures do not amplify communication in this population. Quality ratings were, however, correlated with ASD symptom severity scores, such that participants with fewer ASD symptoms were rated as telling higher quality stories. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of communication and neuropsychological functioning in ASD.

Ashley de Marchena

Inge‐Marie Eigsti

Autism Research

自闭症研究将涵盖被称为普遍性发育障碍（或自闭症谱系障碍 - ASD）的发育障碍。该杂志侧重于基本的遗传、神经生物学和心理机制，以及这些机制如何影响 ASD 的发育过程。

The journal "Autism Research" focuses on the study of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a pervasive developmental disorder. It covers fundamental research in genetics, neurobiology, and psychological mechanisms, examining how these mechanisms influence the developmental processes of ASD.

《Autism Research》期刊专注于自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）这一普遍性发育障碍的研究。该杂志涵盖遗传学、神经生物学和心理机制等基础研究，探讨这些机制如何影响ASD的发展过程。

Conversational gestures in autism spectrum disorders: Asynchrony but not decreased frequency

While story ratings were associated with gesture count in TD adolescents, no such relationship was observed in adolescents with ASD, suggesting that gestures do not amplify communication in this population.

Category	Quartile
医学	2
医学, 行为科学	1
医学, 心理学发育	2

Conversational gestures in autism spectrum disorders: Asynchrony but not decreased frequency

ivySCI AI Smartly Parses PDF, Answers Researchers' Questions, and Helps You Understand Papers in Seconds

Journal Info

Category	Quartile
PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL	1