“A new automated vocal analysis technology could fundamentally change the study of language development as well as the screening for autism spectrum disorders and language delay, reports a study in the July 19 online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The LENA™ (Language Environment Analysis) system automatically labeled infant and child vocalizations from recordings.  Following that step, an automatic acoustic analysis designed by Dr. D. Kimbrough Oller, professor and chair of excellence in audiology and speech-language pathology at the University of Memphis, showed – with 86 percent accuracy – that pre-verbal vocalizations of very young children with autism are distinctly different from those of typically-developing children.”…

Read More… http://www.memphis.edu/releases/jul10/autism.htm