An Exploratory Study of Imagining Sounds and "Hearing" Music in Autism / Alex BACON in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 50-4 (April 2020)  

Public ISBD [article]  inJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders > 50-4 (April 2020) . - p.1123-1132 Titre : An Exploratory Study of Imagining Sounds and "Hearing" Music in Autism Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Alex BACON, Auteur ; C. Philip BEAMAN, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.1123-1132 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Auditory imagery  Autism  Earworms  Music Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reportedly possess preserved or superior music-processing skills compared to their typically developing counterparts. We examined auditory imagery and earworms (tunes that get "stuck" in the head) in adults with ASD and controls. Both groups completed a short earworm questionnaire together with the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale. Results showed poorer auditory imagery in the ASD group for all types of auditory imagery. However, the ASD group did not report fewer earworms than matched controls. These data suggest a possible basis in poor auditory imagery for poor prosody in ASD, but also highlight a separability between auditory imagery and control of musical memories. The separability is present in the ASD group but not in typically developing individuals. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04346-w Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=421 [article] An Exploratory Study of Imagining Sounds and "Hearing" Music in Autism [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Alex BACON, Auteur ; C. Philip BEAMAN, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur . - p.1123-1132. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders > 50-4 (April 2020) . - p.1123-1132 Mots-clés : Auditory imagery  Autism  Earworms  Music Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reportedly possess preserved or superior music-processing skills compared to their typically developing counterparts. We examined auditory imagery and earworms (tunes that get "stuck" in the head) in adults with ASD and controls. Both groups completed a short earworm questionnaire together with the Bucknell Auditory Imagery Scale. Results showed poorer auditory imagery in the ASD group for all types of auditory imagery. However, the ASD group did not report fewer earworms than matched controls. These data suggest a possible basis in poor auditory imagery for poor prosody in ASD, but also highlight a separability between auditory imagery and control of musical memories. The separability is present in the ASD group but not in typically developing individuals. En ligne : http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04346-w Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=421

Atypical vocal imitation of speech and song in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from Mandarin speakers / Li WANG ; Peter Q. Pfordresher ; Cunmei JIANG ; Fang LIU in Autism, 29-2 (February 2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism > 29-2 (February 2025) . - p.408-423 Titre : Atypical vocal imitation of speech and song in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from Mandarin speakers : Autism Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Li WANG, Auteur ; Peter Q. Pfordresher, Auteur ; Cunmei JIANG, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.408-423 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : acoustics  autism  song  speech  vocal imitation Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Vocal imitation in English-speaking autistic individuals has been shown to be atypical. Speaking a tone language such as Mandarin facilitates vocal imitation skills among non-autistic individuals, yet no studies have examined whether this effect holds for autistic individuals. To address this question, we compared vocal imitation of speech and song between 33 autistic Mandarin speakers and 30 age-matched non-autistic peers. Participants were recorded while imitating 40 speech and song stimuli with varying pitch and duration patterns. Acoustic analyses showed that autistic participants imitated relative pitch (but not absolute pitch) less accurately than non-autistic participants for speech, whereas for song the two groups performed comparably on both absolute and relative pitch matching. Regarding duration matching, autistic participants imitated relative duration (inter-onset interval between consecutive notes/syllables) less accurately than non-autistic individuals for both speech and song, while their lower performance on absolute duration matching of the notes/syllables was presented only in the song condition. These findings indicate that experience with tone languages does not mitigate the challenges autistic individuals face in imitating speech and song, highlighting the importance of considering the domains and features of investigation and individual differences in cognitive abilities and language backgrounds when examining imitation in autism. Lay abstract Atypical vocal imitation has been identified in English-speaking autistic individuals, whereas the characteristics of vocal imitation in tone-language-speaking autistic individuals remain unexplored. By comparing speech and song imitation, the present study reveals a unique pattern of atypical vocal imitation across speech and music domains among Mandarin-speaking autistic individuals. The findings suggest that tone language experience does not compensate for difficulties in vocal imitation in autistic individuals and extends our understanding of vocal imitation in autism across different languages. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13623613241275395 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=547 [article] Atypical vocal imitation of speech and song in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from Mandarin speakers : Autism [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Li WANG, Auteur ; Peter Q. Pfordresher, Auteur ; Cunmei JIANG, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur . - p.408-423. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism > 29-2 (February 2025) . - p.408-423 Mots-clés : acoustics  autism  song  speech  vocal imitation Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : Vocal imitation in English-speaking autistic individuals has been shown to be atypical. Speaking a tone language such as Mandarin facilitates vocal imitation skills among non-autistic individuals, yet no studies have examined whether this effect holds for autistic individuals. To address this question, we compared vocal imitation of speech and song between 33 autistic Mandarin speakers and 30 age-matched non-autistic peers. Participants were recorded while imitating 40 speech and song stimuli with varying pitch and duration patterns. Acoustic analyses showed that autistic participants imitated relative pitch (but not absolute pitch) less accurately than non-autistic participants for speech, whereas for song the two groups performed comparably on both absolute and relative pitch matching. Regarding duration matching, autistic participants imitated relative duration (inter-onset interval between consecutive notes/syllables) less accurately than non-autistic individuals for both speech and song, while their lower performance on absolute duration matching of the notes/syllables was presented only in the song condition. These findings indicate that experience with tone languages does not mitigate the challenges autistic individuals face in imitating speech and song, highlighting the importance of considering the domains and features of investigation and individual differences in cognitive abilities and language backgrounds when examining imitation in autism. Lay abstract Atypical vocal imitation has been identified in English-speaking autistic individuals, whereas the characteristics of vocal imitation in tone-language-speaking autistic individuals remain unexplored. By comparing speech and song imitation, the present study reveals a unique pattern of atypical vocal imitation across speech and music domains among Mandarin-speaking autistic individuals. The findings suggest that tone language experience does not compensate for difficulties in vocal imitation in autistic individuals and extends our understanding of vocal imitation in autism across different languages. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13623613241275395 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=547

Bilingual exposure might enhance L1 development in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children: Evidence from the production of focus / Albert Kwing Lok LEE ; Hoi Kwan YUEN ; Fang LIU ; Virginia YIP in Autism, 28-7 (July 2024)  

Public ISBD [article]  inAutism > 28-7 (July 2024) . - p.1795-1808 Titre : Bilingual exposure might enhance L1 development in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children: Evidence from the production of focus Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Albert Kwing Lok LEE, Auteur ; Hoi Kwan YUEN, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur ; Virginia YIP, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.1795-1808 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorders  bilingualism  production of focus Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : This study investigated bilingualism effects on the production of focus in 5- to 9-year-old Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children?s L1 Cantonese, compared to their monolingual autistic peers as well as monolingual and bilingual typically developing children matched in nonverbal IQ, working memory, receptive vocabulary and maternal education. The results from an elicitation task showed that monolingual autistic children had significantly lower accuracy than typically developing children in producing focus in subject and object positions. Bilingual autistic children in general performed similarly to monolingual autistic children but outperformed their monolingual autistic peers in the production of object focus with a significantly higher accuracy. The total amount of English exposure did not relate to the accuracy of focus production in autistic and typically developing children. Our results also revealed autistic children?s tendency to make use of less prosodic means to produce focus. The overall findings indicate that bilingual exposure has no detrimental effect on the language skills of autistic children but might enhance the production of focus in bilingual autistic children?s L1 Cantonese. Lay abstract It is commonly believed among professionals and parents that exposure to two languages imposes an additional burden on children with autism spectrum disorder. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support or reject this belief. With the prevalence of autism and an increasing number of children growing up bilingual, it is urgent to understand how bilingual exposure interacts with autism. Bilingual autistic children from Hong Kong, with Cantonese as their first language and English as their second language, took part in the study. We used a production game to test how bilingual autistic children use different levels of linguistic knowledge to produce contrastive information in real conversations, compared to their monolingual autistic peers and typically developing children matched in language abilities, nonverbal IQ, working memory and maternal education. We found that bilingual autistic children performed as good as typically developing children in general, and they even performed better than monolingual autistic children. Our findings suggest a bilingual advantage in autistic children in conveying constative information in sentences. We thus encourage parents to engage their children in rich bilingual environments. Clinicians, educators and other professionals may also consider adding bilingual aspects in training programmes to support families raising bilingual autistic children. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13623613231207449 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=532 [article] Bilingual exposure might enhance L1 development in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children: Evidence from the production of focus [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Albert Kwing Lok LEE, Auteur ; Hoi Kwan YUEN, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur ; Virginia YIP, Auteur . - p.1795-1808. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Autism > 28-7 (July 2024) . - p.1795-1808 Mots-clés : autism spectrum disorders  bilingualism  production of focus Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : This study investigated bilingualism effects on the production of focus in 5- to 9-year-old Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children?s L1 Cantonese, compared to their monolingual autistic peers as well as monolingual and bilingual typically developing children matched in nonverbal IQ, working memory, receptive vocabulary and maternal education. The results from an elicitation task showed that monolingual autistic children had significantly lower accuracy than typically developing children in producing focus in subject and object positions. Bilingual autistic children in general performed similarly to monolingual autistic children but outperformed their monolingual autistic peers in the production of object focus with a significantly higher accuracy. The total amount of English exposure did not relate to the accuracy of focus production in autistic and typically developing children. Our results also revealed autistic children?s tendency to make use of less prosodic means to produce focus. The overall findings indicate that bilingual exposure has no detrimental effect on the language skills of autistic children but might enhance the production of focus in bilingual autistic children?s L1 Cantonese. Lay abstract It is commonly believed among professionals and parents that exposure to two languages imposes an additional burden on children with autism spectrum disorder. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support or reject this belief. With the prevalence of autism and an increasing number of children growing up bilingual, it is urgent to understand how bilingual exposure interacts with autism. Bilingual autistic children from Hong Kong, with Cantonese as their first language and English as their second language, took part in the study. We used a production game to test how bilingual autistic children use different levels of linguistic knowledge to produce contrastive information in real conversations, compared to their monolingual autistic peers and typically developing children matched in language abilities, nonverbal IQ, working memory and maternal education. We found that bilingual autistic children performed as good as typically developing children in general, and they even performed better than monolingual autistic children. Our findings suggest a bilingual advantage in autistic children in conveying constative information in sentences. We thus encourage parents to engage their children in rich bilingual environments. Clinicians, educators and other professionals may also consider adding bilingual aspects in training programmes to support families raising bilingual autistic children. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13623613231207449 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=532

Comprehension of Prosodically and Syntactically Marked Focus in Cantonese-Speaking Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder / Haoyan GE in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53-3 (March 2023)  

Public ISBD [article]  inJournal of Autism and Developmental Disorders > 53-3 (March 2023) . - p.1255-1268 Titre : Comprehension of Prosodically and Syntactically Marked Focus in Cantonese-Speaking Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Haoyan GE, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur ; Hoi Kwan YUEN, Auteur ; Aishu CHEN, Auteur ; Virginia YIP, Auteur Article en page(s) : p.1255-1268 Langues : Anglais (eng) Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : This study investigated the comprehension of prosodically and syntactically marked focus by 5- to 8-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children listened to question-answer dialogues while looking at pictures depicting the scenarios, and judged whether the answers were correct responses to the questions. The results showed that children with ASD exhibited typically developing (TD)-like performance in the use of syntactic cues to understand focus, although they were significantly slower than their TD peers. However, children with ASD had more difficulties than their TD peers in utilizing prosodic cues in focus comprehension. These findings suggest that the comprehension difficulties found in children with ASD are domain-selective, and children with ASD are sensitive to language-specific focus marking strategies. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05770-1 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=500 [article] Comprehension of Prosodically and Syntactically Marked Focus in Cantonese-Speaking Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Haoyan GE, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur ; Hoi Kwan YUEN, Auteur ; Aishu CHEN, Auteur ; Virginia YIP, Auteur . - p.1255-1268. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders > 53-3 (March 2023) . - p.1255-1268 Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : This study investigated the comprehension of prosodically and syntactically marked focus by 5- to 8-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children listened to question-answer dialogues while looking at pictures depicting the scenarios, and judged whether the answers were correct responses to the questions. The results showed that children with ASD exhibited typically developing (TD)-like performance in the use of syntactic cues to understand focus, although they were significantly slower than their TD peers. However, children with ASD had more difficulties than their TD peers in utilizing prosodic cues in focus comprehension. These findings suggest that the comprehension difficulties found in children with ASD are domain-selective, and children with ASD are sensitive to language-specific focus marking strategies. En ligne : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-022-05770-1 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=500

Do autistic individuals show atypical performance in probabilistic learning? A comparison of cue-number, predictive strength, and prediction error / Lei ZHANG ; Fang LIU in Molecular Autism, 16 (2025)  

Public ISBD [article]  inMolecular Autism > 16 (2025) . - 15 Titre : Do autistic individuals show atypical performance in probabilistic learning? A comparison of cue-number, predictive strength, and prediction error Type de document : Texte imprimé et/ou numérique Auteurs : Lei ZHANG, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur Article en page(s) : 15 Langues : Anglais (eng) Mots-clés : Humans  Autistic Disorder/psychology/physiopathology/diagnosis  Cues  Male  Adult  Female  Probability Learning  Young Adult  Reinforcement, Psychology  Learning  Associative learning  Bayesian  Prediction errors  Predictive coding  Probabilistic learning  Reinforcement learning  reviewed and approved by the University Research Ethics Committee (UREC) at the  University of Reading (reference number: UREC 20/28). All participants provided  their written informed consent prior to their participation. Consent for  publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no  competing interests. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: According to recent models of autism, autistic individuals may find learning probabilistic cue-outcome associations more challenging than deterministic learning, though empirical evidence for this is mixed. Here we examined the mechanism of probabilistic learning more closely by comparing autistic and non-autistic adults on inferring a target cue from multiple cues or integrating multiple target cues and learning from associations with various predictive strengths. METHODS: 52 autistic and 52 non-autistic participants completed three tasks: (i) single-cue probabilistic learning, in which they had to infer a single target cue from multiple cues to learn cue-outcome associations; (ii) multi-cue probabilistic learning, in which they had to learn associations of various predictive strengths via integration of multiple cues; and (iii) reinforcement learning, which required learning the contingencies of two stimuli with a probabilistic reinforcement schedule. Accuracy on the two probabilistic learning tasks was modelled separately using a binomial mixed effects model whereas computational modelling was performed on the reinforcement learning data to obtain a model parameter on prediction error integration (i.e., learning rate). RESULTS: No group differences were found in the single-cue probabilistic learning task. Group differences were evident for the multi-cue probabilistic learning task for associations that are weakly predictive (between 40 and 60%) but not when they are strongly predictive (10-20% or 80-90%). Computational modelling on the reinforcement learning task revealed that, as a group, autistic individuals had a higher learning rate than non-autistic individuals. LIMITATIONS: Due to the online nature of the study, we could not confirm the diagnosis of our autistic sample. The autistic participants were likely to have typical intelligence, and so our findings may not be generalisable to the entire autistic population. The learning tasks are constrained by a relatively small number of trials, and so it is unclear whether group differences will still be seen when given more trials. CONCLUSIONS: Autistic adults showed similar performance as non-autistic adults in learning associations by inferring a single cue or integrating multiple cues when the predictive strength was strong. However, non-autistic adults outperformed autistic adults when the predictive strength was weak, but only in the later phase. Autistic individuals were also more likely to incorporate prediction errors during decision making, which may explain their atypical performance on the weakly predictive associations. Our findings have implications for understanding differences in social cognition, which is often noisy and weakly predictive, among autistic individuals. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00651-7 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=555 [article] Do autistic individuals show atypical performance in probabilistic learning? A comparison of cue-number, predictive strength, and prediction error [Texte imprimé et/ou numérique] / Lei ZHANG, Auteur ; Fang LIU, Auteur . - 15. Langues : Anglais (eng) in Molecular Autism > 16 (2025) . - 15 Mots-clés : Humans  Autistic Disorder/psychology/physiopathology/diagnosis  Cues  Male  Adult  Female  Probability Learning  Young Adult  Reinforcement, Psychology  Learning  Associative learning  Bayesian  Prediction errors  Predictive coding  Probabilistic learning  Reinforcement learning  reviewed and approved by the University Research Ethics Committee (UREC) at the  University of Reading (reference number: UREC 20/28). All participants provided  their written informed consent prior to their participation. Consent for  publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no  competing interests. Index. décimale : PER Périodiques Résumé : BACKGROUND: According to recent models of autism, autistic individuals may find learning probabilistic cue-outcome associations more challenging than deterministic learning, though empirical evidence for this is mixed. Here we examined the mechanism of probabilistic learning more closely by comparing autistic and non-autistic adults on inferring a target cue from multiple cues or integrating multiple target cues and learning from associations with various predictive strengths. METHODS: 52 autistic and 52 non-autistic participants completed three tasks: (i) single-cue probabilistic learning, in which they had to infer a single target cue from multiple cues to learn cue-outcome associations; (ii) multi-cue probabilistic learning, in which they had to learn associations of various predictive strengths via integration of multiple cues; and (iii) reinforcement learning, which required learning the contingencies of two stimuli with a probabilistic reinforcement schedule. Accuracy on the two probabilistic learning tasks was modelled separately using a binomial mixed effects model whereas computational modelling was performed on the reinforcement learning data to obtain a model parameter on prediction error integration (i.e., learning rate). RESULTS: No group differences were found in the single-cue probabilistic learning task. Group differences were evident for the multi-cue probabilistic learning task for associations that are weakly predictive (between 40 and 60%) but not when they are strongly predictive (10-20% or 80-90%). Computational modelling on the reinforcement learning task revealed that, as a group, autistic individuals had a higher learning rate than non-autistic individuals. LIMITATIONS: Due to the online nature of the study, we could not confirm the diagnosis of our autistic sample. The autistic participants were likely to have typical intelligence, and so our findings may not be generalisable to the entire autistic population. The learning tasks are constrained by a relatively small number of trials, and so it is unclear whether group differences will still be seen when given more trials. CONCLUSIONS: Autistic adults showed similar performance as non-autistic adults in learning associations by inferring a single cue or integrating multiple cues when the predictive strength was strong. However, non-autistic adults outperformed autistic adults when the predictive strength was weak, but only in the later phase. Autistic individuals were also more likely to incorporate prediction errors during decision making, which may explain their atypical performance on the weakly predictive associations. Our findings have implications for understanding differences in social cognition, which is often noisy and weakly predictive, among autistic individuals. En ligne : https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13229-025-00651-7 Permalink : https://www.cra-rhone-alpes.org/cid/opac_css/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=555

Emotion recognition in autism spectrum disorder across age groups: A cross-sectional investigation of various visual and auditory communicative domains / Florence Y. N. LEUNG in Autism Research, 16-4 (April 2023)  

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Investigating implicit emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder across age groups: A cross-modal emotional priming study / Florence Y. N. LEUNG in Autism Research, 17-4 (April 2024)  

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Linguistic and Musical Syntax Processing in Autistic and Non-Autistic Individuals: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study / Anna PETROVA ; Zivile BERNOTAITE ; Maleeha SUJAWAL ; Chen ZHAO ; Hiba AHMED ; Cunmei JIANG ; Fang LIU in Autism Research, 18-6 (June 2025)  

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Mental representations of speech and musical pitch contours reveal a diversity of profiles in autism spectrum disorder / Li WANG in Autism, 27-3 (April 2023)  

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Perception and Production of Statement-Question Intonation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Developmental Investigation / Li WANG in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52-8 (August 2022)  

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Perception of Melodic Contour and Intonation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence From Mandarin Speakers / Jun JIANG in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45-7 (July 2015)  

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Predictive processing of music and language in autism: Evidence from Mandarin and English speakers / Jia Hoong ONG ; Anamarija VEIC ; Aniruddh D. PATEL ; Cunmei JIANG ; Allison R. FOGEL ; Li WANG ; Qingqi HOU ; Dipsikha DAS ; Cara CRASTO ; Bhismadev CHAKRABARTI ; Tim I. WILLIAMS ; Ariadne LOUTRARI ; Fang LIU in Autism Research, 17-6 (June 2024)  

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Probabilistic Learning of Cue-Outcome Associations is not Influenced by Autistic Traits / Jia Hoong ONG in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53-10 (October 2023)  

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The Relationship Between Autism and Pitch Perception is Modulated by Cognitive Abilities / Chen ZHAO ; Alex BACON ; Florence Yik Nam LEUNG ; Anamarija VEIC ; Li WANG ; Cunmei JIANG ; Fang LIU in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 54-9 (September 2024)  

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Using music to assist language learning in autistic children with minimal verbal language: The MAP feasibility RCT / Tim I. WILLIAMS in Autism, 28-10 (October 2024)  

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