Mapping prosody and meaning by Cantonese-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder

Effective usage of prosody enables speakers to stress new and important information while deemphasizing old and less important information. The current study investigates how children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) perceive focus-marking in Cantonese. We presented matched and mismatched conversation pairs regarding broad and narrow focus conditions to participants aged six to ten and test their ability by using a naturalness judgmental task. Compared to the performance of adults, the results showed that children have difficulties in integrating prosodic cues and information structure marking regardless of their IQ, language ability or autistic condition in general.