• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.153-160
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• 2010

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prenatal, perinatal, and infancy history of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as compared to unaffected siblings (SIB) and typically developing children (TC). Methods: Subjects with ASD, their SIB, and TC were recruited. All subjects were assessed using both the Korean version of Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (K-ADI-R) and the Korean version of Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (K-ADOS) and were subsequently identified as affected or unaffected. Prenatal, perinatal, and infancy history was obtained from the primary caregivers and each facet was compared in those with ASD, the SIB, and the TC groups using SPSS ver. 17.0 (p<.05). Results: 70 individuals with ASD (63 males, 87.94${\pm}$37.8months), 53 SIB (27 males, 85.4087.94${\pm}$48.06 months), and 32 TC (19 males, 104.1987.94${\pm}$23.409 months) were analyzed. The ASD group showed significantly higher rates of insufficient vaccination as they aged age ($x^2$=15.54, p=.000). Among the scheduled vaccinations, the DPT vaccination ($x^2$=10.08, p=.006) was insufficient in ASD groups. The ASD group also showed higher rates of sleep disturbances from infancy. Differences in maternal/paternal age at conception, gestational age, and growth parameters at birth were not significantly difference among the three groups. Conclusion: These results do not support the previous controversies regarding the relationship between prenatal/perinatal complications and ASD. However, these results indicate that perinatal and prenatal factors may contribute to the development of ASD.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.39-49
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• 2020

The prosody of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has several abnormal features, including monotonous speech. The purpose of this study was to compare acoustic features between an ASD group and a typically developing (TD) group and within the ASD group. The study also examined audience perceptions of the lengthening effect of increasing the number of syllables. 50 participants were divided into two groups (20 with ASD and 30 TD), and they were asked to imitate a total of 28 sentences. In the auditory-perceptual evaluation, seven participants chose sentence types in 115 sentences. Pitch, intensity, speech rate, and pitch slope were used to analyze the significant differences. In conclusion, the ASD group showed higher pitch and intensity and a lower overall speaking rate than the TD group. Moreover, there were significant differences in s2 slope of interrogative sentences. Finally, based on the auditory-perceptual evaluation, only 4.3% of interrogative sentences produced by participants with ASD were perceived as declarative sentences. The cause of this abnormal prosody has not been clearly identified; however, pragmatic ability and other characteristics of autism are related to ASD prosody. This study identified prosodic ASD patterns and suggested the need to develop treatments to improve prosody.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.67-76
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• 2020

Objectives: Brain maturation involves brain lateralization and asymmetry to achieve efficient information processing and cognitive controls. This study elucidates normal brain maturation change during the gap between ages 6-9 and age 14-17 using resting EEG. Methods: An EEG dataset was acquired from open source MIPDB (Multimodal Resource for Studying Information Processing in the Developing Brain). Ages 6-9 (n = 24) and ages 14-17 (n = 26) were selected for analysis, and subjects with psychiatric illness or EEG with severe noise were excluded. Finally, ages 6-9 (n = 14) and ages 14-17 (n = 11) were subjected to EEG analysis using EEGlab. A 120-sec length of resting EEG when eyes were closed was secured for analysis. Brain topography was compartmentalized into nine regions, best fitted with brain anatomical structure. Results: Absolute power of the delta band and theta band in ages 6-9 was greater than that of ages 14-17 in the whole brain, and, also is relative power of delta band in frontal compartment, which is same line with previous studies. The relative power of the beta band of ages 14-17 was greater than that of ages 6-9 in the whole brain. In asymmetry evaluation, relative power of the theta band in ages 14-17 showed greater power in the left than right frontal compartment; the opposite finding was noted in the parietal compartment. For the alpha band, a strong relative power distribution in the left parietal compartment was observed in ages 14-17. Absolute and relative power of the alpha band is distributed with hemispheric left lateralization in ages 14-17. Conclusion: During the gap period between ages 6-9 and ages 14-17, brain work becomes more complicated and sophisticated, and alpha band and beta band plays important roles in brain maturation in typically developing children.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.59-69
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• 2024

Among the subgroups of speech sound disorder (SSD), the motor speech disorder (MSD) group is characterized by weak articulatory force. This study quantitatively measured and compared articulatory muscle strength between SSD and typically developing (TD) children. The Iowa Oral Performance Instrument (IOPI) was used to measure lip and tongue strength in 15 children with SSD and 15 TD children. We additionally measured peak lip and tongue pressure and endurance, and analyzed the correlation between each strength measure and the percentage of consonants correct (PCC). The findings were as follows: First, lip strength for the bilabial sounds did not differ between the two groups in the initial position but was significantly weaker in the SSD group in the final position. Tongue strength for alveolar sounds was weaker in the SSD group than in the TD group for the initial and final positions. Second, for lip and tongue strength, the difference in voicing features was significant in the TD group but not in the SSD group. Third, the peak pressure and endurance of the lips and tongue were significantly lower in the SSD group than in the TD group. Fourth, significantly higher static correlations were observed between most strength measures and the PCC. These findings suggest that weakness in articulatory motor execution may be an unrecognized underlying problem of SSD with unknown origin.