PP1329 - Remote Microphone System Use in Homes of Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Study Rationale/

Purpose:

            Young listeners with ASD often struggle to understand speech in background noise (present in many households), which could detrimentally impact speech and language development, communication within family units, social relationships, and academic achievements. To address these potential consequences, current evidence suggests that wireless hearing technologies can facilitate listening in background noise. This study aimed to investigate the impact of in-home RMS use on auditory behaviors and communication between children with ASD and their caregivers. By providing RMS devices to families for home-based use, this project is well-positioned to determine if such interventions can improve dyadic interactions and/or focus children’s attention while communicating. Future results could help educate professionals about potential benefits and realistic limitations of RMS use for families.

Research

Design/Methods:

            Extending our laboratory’s prior work, this project evaluated the effects of short-term RMS use on auditory and communicative behaviors in home environments in a preliminary cohort of 10 children with ASD, ages 3 to 6 years, recruited from across the United States. Specifically, by employing a within-subjects, repeated measures design, this study examined different aspects of dyadic verbal exchanges, in addition to caregivers’ subjective perceptions of their children’s auditory behavior and device experiences when using versus when not using an RMS at home during a two-weekend trial period. The following measurements were collected from daylong Language Environmental Analysis (LENA™) recordings for both weekends: (1) total child talk; (2) total caregiver talk; (3) number of child-caregiver conversational turns; and (4) number of caregiver-produced repetitions and alerting phrases within human-coded audio segments.

Expected

Results:

            Data collected to date suggest between-condition differences are expected for all categories of caregiver communication. On average, relative to no RMS use, the following outcomes are anticipated when utilizing RMS technology in home settings:

1.) Caregivers will produce fewer verbal repetitions and alerting phases per sample, which can be interpreted as an index of increased child responsiveness.

2.) No systematic impact on child vocalizations will emerge across participants. Some children might have aversive reactions to the enhanced signal-to-noise ratio or presence of an ear-level worn device, whereas others might have heightened attention towards the amplified adult speaker in the short span of this study.

3.) Caregivers will produce significantly more vocalizations, and caregiver-child dyads will generate an increase in conversational turn counts across the group of participants.

4.) Caregivers will report listening gains at home for their children with ASD, including improved responsiveness and auditory behaviors, coupled by greater ease of family communication.

Conclusions:

            To summarize, the increased signal-to-noise ratio provided by an RMS is expected to facilitate better auditory responsiveness, communication, and caregiver-reported behaviors among children with ASD, compared to no assistive technology. Furthermore, extended RMS use could yield a cascade of related empirical benefits, including enhanced speech and language development, attention and responsiveness, listening experiences, social interactions, and conversational engagement within family units. Broadly, outcomes of this research could inform public health agencies and educational organizations on the appropriateness of financial investments in this treatment option.