Distinct Pause Patterns in Autism: Effects of Sex and Conversational Context in French-Speaking (Pre)adolescents.
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| Title: | Distinct Pause Patterns in Autism: Effects of Sex and Conversational Context in French-Speaking (Pre)adolescents. |
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| Authors: | Belenger, Marie1 Marie.Belenger@ulb.be, Dumont, Charlotte1, Geelhand, Philippine1, Kissinea, Mikhail2,3 |
| Source: | Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research. Jun2026, Vol. 69 Issue 6, p2590-2604. 15p. |
| Subject Terms: | *Conversation, *Data analysis, *Autism, *Asperger's syndrome, *Comparative studies, *Adolescence, Speech, Research funding, Task performance, Sex distribution, Questionnaires, Research evaluation, Statistics, Data analysis software, Regression analysis |
| Abstract: | Purpose: We investigated sex differences in the production of pauses in autistic (pre-)adolescents in two conversational contexts: a monologue and an interactive discussion. Method: This study included 107 French-speaking participants (Mage=12.35 years), 49 autistic (22 females, 27 males) and 58 nonautistic (30 females, 28 males). Speech was elicited from two tasks: a get-to-know conversation and a narrative task. We analyzed the production of filled "uh" and "um" pauses as well as the production of unusually long silent pauses (> 700 ms). Results: Autistic participants produced more silent pauses than nonautistic participants, but no significant group differences were found for filled pauses. Filled pauses occurred more frequently in the get-to-know than in the narratives, which underscores their pragmatic functions. No significant effect of sex was found. Conclusions: Autism diagnosis and conversational context, but not sex, influenced pause productions. Our results also highlight the importance of crosslinguistic studies, including in autism research, to avoid the overgeneralization of findings from English-speaking populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Database: | Education Research Complete |
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