4 research outputs found
Receiving an assessment and a potential diagnosis on the autism spectrum : a thematic content analysis of parental experiences
Having a child assessed for a possible diagnosis on the autism spectrum is a significant challenge for parents and it is important that research continues to be conducted to evaluate how parents feel about the process and what might be done to enhance this. National guidance on diagnostic assessment and autism have been produced (eg NAPC, 2003 and SIGN, 2007) and the National Institute of Clinical Excellence has also very recently published guidance on this. This paper explores the experiences of eight families living in North Wales on the diagnostic assessment process they experienced by two different teams. They were interviewed two years after the assessment which created the opportunity to ascertain how they felt about the support which followed too
Bridging music and speech rhythm: Rhythmic priming and audio-motor training affect speech perception
International audienceFollowing findings that musical rhythmic priming enhances subsequent speech perception, we investigated whether rhythmic priming for spoken sentences can enhance phonological processing – the building blocks of speech – and whether audio–motor training enhances this effect. Participants heard a metrical prime followed by a sentence (with a matching/mismatching prosodic structure), for which they performed a phoneme detection task. Behavioural (RT) data was collected from two groups: one who received audio–motor training, and one who did not.We hypothesised that 1) phonological processing would be enhanced in matching conditions, and 2) audio–motor training with the musical rhythms would enhance this effect. Indeed, providing a matching rhythmic prime context resulted in faster phoneme detection, thus revealing a cross-domain effect of musical rhythm on phonological processing. In addition, our results indicate that rhythmic audio–motor training enhances this priming effect. These results have important implications for rhythm-based speech therapies, and suggest that metrical rhythm in music and speech may rely on shared temporal processing brain resources