Production of focus in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children: an acoustic analysis

This study examined the acoustic realization of focus in Cantonese-English bilingual autistic children’s first language (L1) Cantonese, compared to bilingual typically developing (TD) children and adults, and explored the effects of bilingualism on the production. Results from an elicitation task showed that bilingual autistic children primarily relied on duration to mark focus in L1 Cantonese, similar to adults, but exhibited weaker use of pitch and intensity compared to bilingual TD children. Second language (L2) English exposure and proficiency did not influence focus marking in bilingual autistic children, likely due to their later and reduced English exposure compared to TD children. Conversely, bilingual TD children’s prosodic use was modulated by English exposure and proficiency. These findings reveal that bilingualism does not hinder autistic children’s prosodic focus production in their L1 Cantonese and highlight distinct bilingualism effects on prosodic focus production in autistic and TD children.