Exploring Motor Speech Disorders in Low and Minimally Verbal Autistic Individuals: An Auditory-Perceptual Analysis

PURPOSE

Motor deficits are widely documented among autistic individuals, and speech characteristics consistent with a motor speech disorder have been reported in prior literature. We conducted an auditory-perceptual analysis of speech production skills in low and minimally verbal autistic individuals as a step toward clarifying the nature of speech production impairments in this population and the potential link between oromotor functioning and language development.

METHOD

Fifty-four low or minimally verbal autistic individuals aged 4-18 years were video-recorded performing nonspeech oromotor tasks and producing phonemes, syllables, and words in imitation. Three trained speech-language pathologists provided auditory perceptual ratings of 11 speech features reflecting speech subsystem performance and overall speech production ability. The presence, attributes, and severity of signs of oromotor dysfunction were analyzed, as were relative performance on nonspeech and speech tasks and correlations between perceptual speech features and language skills.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Our findings provide evidence of a motor speech disorder in this population, characterized by perceptual speech features including reduced intelligibility, decreased consonant and vowel precision, and impairments of speech coordination and consistency. Speech deficits were more associated with articulation than with other speech subsystems. Speech production was more impaired than nonspeech oromotor abilities in a subgroup of the sample. Oromotor deficits were significantly associated with expressive and receptive language skills. Findings are interpreted in the context of known characteristics of the pediatric motor speech disorders childhood apraxia of speech and childhood dysarthria. These results, if replicated in future studies, have significant potential to improve the early detection of language impairments, inform the development of speech and language interventions, and aid in the identification of neurobiological mechanisms influencing communication development.

Receptive language and receptive-expressive discrepancy in minimally verbal autistic children and adolescents

Among the approximately one-third of autistic individuals who experience considerable challenges in acquiring spoken language and are minimally verbal (MV), relatively little is known about the range of their receptive language abilities. This study included 1579 MV autistic children and adolescents between 5 and 18 years of age drawn from the National Database for Autism Research and the SFARI Base data repository. MV autistic children and adolescents demonstrated significantly lower receptive language compared to the norms on standardized language assessment and parent report measures. Moreover, their receptive language gap widened with age. Overall, our sample demonstrated significantly better receptive than expressive language. However, at the individual level, only about 25% of MV autistic children and adolescents demonstrated significantly better receptive language relative to their minimal expressive levels. Social skills explained a significant proportion of the variance in parent-reported receptive language skills, while motor skills were the most significant predictor of greater receptive-expressive discrepancy. Findings from this study revealed the heterogeneous language profiles in MV autistic children and adolescents, underscoring the importance of individualizing interventions to match their different communication strengths and needs and integrating multiple interconnected areas to optimize their overall development of language comprehension, socialization, and general motor skills.

The Acquisition of Relative Clauses in Autism: The Role of Executive Functions and Language

PURPOSE

Relative clauses present a well-known processing asymmetry between object-extracted and subject-extracted dependencies across both typical and atypical populations. The present study aimed at exploring the comprehension of object and subject relative clauses as conceptualized by the Relativized Minimality framework in autistic children and in a group of age- and IQ-matched typically-developing children. The study also explored the way performance in relative clauses would be affected by the children's language and executive function skills.

METHOD

Relative clause comprehension was tested through a sentence-picture matching task and language was tested with a receptive vocabulary task. Executive functions were assessed through backward digit recall and a Flanker test.

RESULTS

Object relative clauses were harder to parse for both groups than subject relatives, while number mismatch between the moved object Noun Phrase and the intervening subject Noun Phrase in object relatives boosted both groups' performances. Typically-developing children's performance in object relatives was predicted by both language and executive functions, while autistic children failed to use language and did not systematically draw on their executive functions in object relative clause comprehension.

CONCLUSION

The findings suggest that relative clause processing in autism follows a normal developmental trajectory, and that difficulty with parsing object relative clauses stems from reduced language and executive functions rather than deficits in the children's morphosyntactic skills.

Linguistic and metalinguistic characteristics of Persian-speaking children with autistic spectrum disorders: A systematic review

Studies of ASD children have mainly focused on pragmatics, but research showed they have problems in other language dimensions. The present systematic review aims to analyze the literature related to linguistic and metalinguistic studies to determine linguistic characteristics and their correlation with reading and writing. After reviewing 43 articles founded, the studies were divided into four main categories: descriptive, comparative, linguistic, and finally nonlinguistic interventional studies. 42% of studies are descriptive, 14% were comparative, and 5% were about the effect of linguistic and metalinguistic training on reading and writing. Studies on the effect of other training on linguistic and metalinguistic skills were about 39% of the studies. They have deficiencies in different linguistic and metalinguistic skills, especially grammar. There were no studies investigating the relationship between linguistic and metalinguistic abilities. The relationship between language and reading skills has been neglected and only one study has examined the correlation between phonological awareness and reading skills. Thus, there is a serious gap in metalinguistic studies. However, it is necessary to study these relationships due to the change in the reading education system from a phonological to a lexical path in schools. The effect of nonlinguistic interventions has been studied more than linguistic ones.

Expressive and Receptive Language in Russian Primary-School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

BACKGROUND

Abnormal language development in both expressive and receptive domains occurs in most children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), although the language deficit is not a core symptom of ASD. However, previous studies disagree on the difference in the degree of impairment between expressive and receptive language in ASD. Existing research has concentrated on vocabulary and 'global expressive and receptive language', often using parental reports for language assessment. Moreover, most of these studies have focused on toddlers and preschoolers with ASD, whereas data from school-aged children with ASD are very limited. At the same time, the age of children might account for the inconsistencies across publications on expressive-receptive language difference in children with ASD.

AIMS

The goal of the study was to directly compare the expressive and receptive language abilities of Russian primary-school-aged children with ASD (7-11 years old) at the levels of vocabulary, morphosyntax, and discourse.

METHODS

82 children with ASD participated in language testing. We used tests from the Russian Child Language Assessment Battery in order to assess vocabulary, morphosyntax, and discourse in expressive and receptive domains.

RESULTS

Our results revealed different expressive and receptive patterns, depending on the linguistic level and tests complexity. Importantly, we showed that children's non-verbal IQ partly accounted for the difference between production and comprehension abilities.

CONCLUSIONS

The expressive-better-than-receptive pattern in language has been considered by some authors as the unique hallmark of ASD. However, several studies, including our own, show that this is not a universal characteristic of ASD. We also revealed that expressive and receptive language patterns differed depending on the linguistic level, children's non-verbal IQ, and assessment tools.

Language Abilities of Russian Primary-School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from Comprehensive Assessment

The purpose of the present research was to comprehensively assess the language abilities of Russian primary-school-aged children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), varying in non-verbal IQ, at all linguistic levels (phonology, lexicon, morphosyntax, and discourse) in production and comprehension. Yet, the influence of such non-language factors as children's age, the severity of autistic traits, and non-verbal IQ on language functioning was studied. Our results indicate a high variability of language skills in children with ASD (from normal to impaired) which is in line with the previous studies. Interestingly, the number of children with normal language abilities was related to the linguistic levels: according to more complex morphosyntax and discourse tests, fewer children with ASD were within the normal range unlike the results in simpler phonological and lexical tests. Importantly, we found that language abilities were best predicted by non-verbal IQ but were independent from age and the severity of autistic traits. The findings support the claim that formal language assessment of children with ASD needs to include all linguistic levels, from phonology to discourse, for helping speech-language therapists to choose an appropriate therapy target.

Brief Report: Predicting Social Skills from Semantic, Syntactic, and Pragmatic Language Among Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The language and social skill deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) warrant further study. Existing research has focused on the contributions of pragmatic language to social skills, with little attention to other aspects of language. We examined the associations across three language domains (semantics, syntax, and pragmatics) and their relations to parent- and teacher-rated social skills among children with ASD. When parent-reported language skills were considered simultaneously, only semantics significantly predicted children's social skills. For teacher-reported language skills, all three language domains predicted children's social skills, but none made unique contributions above and beyond one another. Further research should consider the impact of social context on language expectations and interventions targeting semantic language on children's development of social skills.

Grammatical judgment and production in male participants with idiopathic autism spectrum disorder

This study examined grammatical judgment and production in 22 male participants with idiopathic autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had a range of nonverbal IQ from 44 to 111 (mean = 72.23) and were between 9.42 and 16.75 years of age (mean = 13.45). Relationships between grammatical judgment and production and nonverbal IQ were examined. Participants completed the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (TEGI) to describe relative strengths and weaknesses in their ability to judge and produce grammatical tense. Participants also completed the Leiter-R to assess the relationship between nonverbal IQ and grammatical judgment and production. Relative strengths were found across participants in judging correct use of subject-verb agreement in sentences, and correctly producing verbs that linked sentences (e.g., auxiliaries and copulas of be "Is she resting?"). Participants had the greatest difficulty judging the correctness of a sentence using a dropped verb tense marker (e.g., "He look happy now") and producing irregular verb tense markers. Nonverbal IQ did not contribute to the variance in performance on any tasks of grammaticality judgment or production. Grammatical markers that mark tense in past tense verbs as well as the production of auxiliary do may be an important focus of language intervention for boys with ASD.

Social Communication and Structural Language of Girls With High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

Purpose The purpose of this study was to characterize social communication and structural language of school-age girls with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD) compared to a matched group of girls who are typically developing (TD). Method Participants were 37 girls between 7;5 and 15;2 (years;months)-18 HF-ASD and 19 TD. Children completed the Test of Pragmatic Language-Second Edition (TOPL-2) and Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fifth Edition. Parents completed the Children's Communication Checklist-2 United States Edition (CCC-2) and Receptive and Expressive Communication subdomains of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-Second Edition. Results In the area of social communication, girls with HF-ASD earned significantly lower scores and were more often classified as having an impairment on the TOPL-2 and the CCC-2. However, 28% and 33% earned average scores on the TOPL-2 and the CCC-2, respectively. In the area of structural language, no significant differences were found between groups on Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fifth Edition indexes. In contrast, girls with HF-ASD earned significantly lower scores and were more often classified as having an impairment on the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-Second Edition. Sixty-one percent and 83% scored below average on the Receptive and Expressive Communication subdomains, respectively. Conclusions It has been argued that girls with HF-ASD, when compared to boys with HF-ASD, may have advantages for social communication and structural language that mask their impairments. However, when compared to girls who are TD, girls with HF-ASD demonstrated impaired social communication and structural language. Clinicians should include and carefully examine multiple sources of information when assessing girls with HF-ASD.

Phonological and lexical abilities of Jordanian children with autism

This study examines phonological and lexical abilities of children with autism in Jordan. JISH Articulation Test (JAT) to measure phonological abilities and JISH School Readiness Screening Test to measure lexical abilities were used in the study. Children with ASD (n = 39) aged 4-8 years and 40 children with typical development were selected to participate in this study. The main finding of this study was that language impairment in both phonological and lexical abilities were noted among Jordanian children with ASD. The results also showed that phonological impairment was greater than lexical impairment. It is concluded that the findings of such study will be helpful to guide experts to provide children with ASD with appropriate educational programs and establish a comprehensive and effective treatment protocols that include phonological and lexical exercises to enhance their speech and language abilities.

Are language features and emotion regulation related to maternal depression in autism and language delay?

BACKGROUND

Language and communication are very important in child social, emotional and cognitive development. Delay in language is usually the first complaint for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or developmental language delay (DLD). This study evaluated language features and emotion regulation skills in children diagnosed with ASD and DLD and their association with maternal depression.

METHOD

The sample consisted of children aged 24-54 months diagnosed with ASD (n = 31), or with DLD (n = 45), and 52 healthy controls. The Test of Early Language Development (TELD-3) was used to evaluate language profiles, and the beck depression inventory (BDI) was used to examine maternal depression. Children's emotion regulation skills were evaluated using the emotion regulation checklist.

RESULTS

Children with DLD had a significantly higher developmental age, were linguistically more developed and had better emotion regulation than the ASD group. All domains of language on TELD-3 except expressive syntax were more developed in DLD. Maternal BDI score did not differ significantly between DLD and ASD. Both of these disorders were not associated with maternal depression.

CONCLUSION

Children with DLD were less impaired than children with ASD, both in terms of language and in emotion regulation.

Receptive language is associated with visual perception in typically developing children and sensorimotor skills in autism spectrum conditions

A number of studies have evidenced marked difficulties in language in autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Studies have also shown that language and word knowledge are associated with the same area of brain that is also responsible for visual perception in typically developing (TD) individuals. However, in ASC, research suggests word meaning is mapped differently, on to situational sensorimotor components within the brain. Furthermore, motor coordination is associated with communication skills. The current study explores whether motor coordination and visual perception are impaired in children with ASC, and whether difficulties in coordination and visual perception correlate with receptive language levels. 36 children took part: 18 with ASC and 18 TD children, matched on age and non-verbal reasoning. Both groups completed the Movement ABC, Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration, British Picture Vocabulary Scale and Matrices (WASI). Results showed that ASC children scored significantly lower on receptive language, coordination and visual motor integration than the TD group. In the TD group receptive language significantly correlated with visual perception; in the ASC group receptive language significantly correlated with balance. These results imply that sensorimotor skills are associated with the understanding of language in ASC and thus the relationship between sensorimotor experiences and language warrants further investigation.

Syntax and Morphology in Danish-Speaking Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The current study examined delays in syntax and morphology, and vocabulary, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children ages 4-6 years with ASD (n = 21) and typical development (n = 21), matched on nonverbal mental age, completed five language tasks. The ASD group had significant delays in both syntax and morphology, and vocabulary measures, with significant within-group heterogeneity; furthermore, syntactic and morphological measures were impaired even for subgroups matched on vocabulary. Children in the ASD group without early language delay showed syntactic and morphological impairment, with intact performance on vocabulary and sentence repetition. Findings indicate that syntactic and morphological impairments are a significant concern for high-functioning children with ASD, and may be overlooked if language evaluation focuses exclusively on vocabulary.

Language Skills of Males with Fragile X Syndrome or Nonsyndromic Autism Spectrum Disorder

Despite the similarities observed between the fragile X syndrome (FXS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) phenotypes, few studies have compared their behavioral profiles outside of ASD symptomatology. In the present study, we sought to compare lexical and grammatical abilities in these two conditions. Comparisons of language abilities in both of these conditions are particularly interesting because both conditions are characterized by difficulties navigating social interactions. Results suggest that although both FXS and ASD are associated with language difficulties, there are important differences between the two conditions in terms of the language profiles observed and the factors influencing language when considering children of similar developmental levels. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Investigating the Receptive-Expressive Vocabulary Profile in Children with Idiopathic ASD and Comorbid ASD and Fragile X Syndrome

Previous work has noted that some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display weaknesses in receptive vocabulary relative to expressive vocabulary abilities. The current study extended previous work by examining the receptive-expressive vocabulary profile in boys with idiopathic ASD and boys with concomitant ASD and fragile X syndrome (ASD + FXS). On average, boys with ASD + FXS did not display the same atypical receptive-expressive profile as boys with idiopathic ASD. Notably, there was variation in vocabulary abilities and profiles in both groups. Although we did not identify predictors of receptive-expressive differences, we demonstrated that nonverbal IQ and expressive vocabulary positively predicted concurrent receptive vocabulary knowledge and receptive vocabulary predicted expressive vocabulary. We discuss areas of overlap and divergence in subgroups of ASD.

A Discrepancy in Comprehension and Production in Early Language Development in ASD: Is it Clinically Relevant?

This study examined the extent to which a discrepant comprehension-production profile (i.e., relatively more delayed comprehension than production) is characteristic of the early language phenotype in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and tracked the developmental progression of the profile. Our findings indicated that a discrepant comprehension-production profile distinguished toddlers (30 months) with ASD from late talkers without ASD (91% sensitivity, 100% specificity) in groups that were comparable on expressive language, age, and socioeconomic status. Longitudinal data for children with ASD revealed that the discrepant profile steadily decreased from 30 to 44 months until there was no significant comprehension-production difference at 66 months. In conclusion, results suggest that lower comprehension than production may be an age-specific marker of toddlers with ASD.

An Introduction to Play and the Preschool Child with Autistic Spectrum Disorder

As the main occupation of childhood, play is considered by occupational therapists as an important vehicle for the assessment and treatment of preschool children. For the child with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), play not only offers a mechanism whereby the severity of the disorder can be ascertained but also enables interventions to be implemented and monitored.

This paper aims to summarise the current literature as it relates to the play of children with ASD. By doing so, it alerts the reader to the complexity of the issue of play as a means of assessment and intervention and highlights areas of continuing clinical and research concern.

The relationship between expressive language level and psychological development in children with autism 5 years of age

The age of detection of autism varies and may be linked to differences in the severity of disturbance and any associated retardation. Symptom intensity, overall language level, age of recognition of first disturbances and level of psychological development were examined in 222 children with pervasive developmental disorder with a mean age of 5 years. Results showed a positive correlation between language level and psychological development as well as between language level and intensity of symptoms. The central position of language in psychological development is discussed.

Moral understanding in children with autism

Children with autism were compared with control groups on their ability to make moral judgements. Participants were presented with pairs of vignettes in which actions were either deliberate or accidental and caused injury to a person or damage to property. Participants were asked to judge which protagonist was the naughtier and to verbally justify this judgement. Results showed that the children with autism were as likely as controls to judge culpability on the basis of motive, and to judge injury to persons as more culpable than damage to property. Children with autism also offered some appropriate verbal justifications for their judgments although most justifications were of poor quality and reiterated the story. Results are discussed in terms of theory of mind and the possible role of deficits in complex reasoning and executive functions.

Transfer of the Picture-in-the-Head Analogy to Natural Contexts to Aid False Belief Understanding in Autism

Interventions to build false belief understanding in people with autism have successfully used a picture-in-the-head technique to illustrate that seeing directs actions. However, participants who subsequently passed some novel false belief tasks could not do so in real-life settings. The present intervention aimed to bridge this gap in understanding by using teaching methods that linked picture-in-the-head dolls to videos of actors in natural settings. The intervention comprised three levels. At level 1, participants were taught that seeing leads to knowing. At level 2, they were helped to pass false belief scenarios using picture-in-the-head dolls. At level 3, they were guided from these scenes to similar stories on video in which people acted out the false belief events. At post-test, seven out of ten subjects (mean verbal mental age 4:2 years) passed at least two out of three novel video-recorded false belief stories. However, some participants required narration in order to complete the tasks. Observation of the learning process across individuals indicated that there are subgroups of people with autism who have different areas of difficulty.

Atypical Cross-Modal Profiles and Longitudinal Associations Between Vocabulary Scores in Initially Minimally Verbal Children With ASD

We tested the relative levels (i.e., age equivalencies) of concurrent cross-modality (receptive and expressive) vocabulary and the relative strength of the longitudinal, cross-modality associations between early and later vocabulary sizes in minimally verbal preschoolers with ASD. Eighty-seven children participated. Parent-reported vocabulary was assessed at four periods separated by 4 months each. Expressive age equivalent scores were higher than receptive age equivalent scores at all four periods. Cross-lagged panel analysis was used to rule out common, but trivial, explanations for differences between the longitudinal associations of interest. Key associations were tested across intervals that varied from 8 to 12 months. In two of the three tested panels, the associations between early expressive vocabulary size and later receptive vocabulary size were stronger than the associations between early receptive vocabulary size and later expressive vocabulary size, providing evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis that expressive vocabulary size drives receptive vocabulary size in minimally verbal preschoolers with ASD.

Emotional language processing in autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review

In his first description of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Kanner emphasized emotional impairments by characterizing children with ASD as indifferent to other people, self-absorbed, emotionally cold, distanced, and retracted. Thereafter, emotional impairments became regarded as part of the social impairments of ASD, and research mostly focused on understanding how individuals with ASD recognize visual expressions of emotions from faces and body postures. However, it still remains unclear how emotions are processed outside of the visual domain. This systematic review aims to fill this gap by focusing on impairments of emotional language processing in ASD. We systematically searched PubMed for papers published between 1990 and 2013 using standardized search terms. Studies show that people with ASD are able to correctly classify emotional language stimuli as emotionally positive or negative. However, processing of emotional language stimuli in ASD is associated with atypical patterns of attention and memory performance, as well as abnormal physiological and neural activity. Particularly, younger children with ASD have difficulties in acquiring and developing emotional concepts, and avoid using these in discourse. These emotional language impairments were not consistently associated with age, IQ, or level of development of language skills. We discuss how emotional language impairments fit with existing cognitive theories of ASD, such as central coherence, executive dysfunction, and weak Theory of Mind. We conclude that emotional impairments in ASD may be broader than just a mere consequence of social impairments, and should receive more attention in future research.

Receptive vocabulary in boys with autism spectrum disorder: cross-sectional developmental trajectories

In light of evidence that receptive language may be a relative weakness for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), this study characterized receptive vocabulary profiles in boys with ASD using cross-sectional developmental trajectories relative to age, nonverbal cognition, and expressive vocabulary. Participants were 49 boys with ASD (4-11 years) and 80 typically developing boys (2-11 years). Receptive vocabulary, assessed with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, was a weakness for boys with ASD relative to age and nonverbal cognition. Relative to expressive vocabulary, assessed with the Expressive Vocabulary Test, receptive vocabulary increased at a lower rate for boys with ASD. Vocabulary trajectories in ASD are distinguished from typical development; however, nonverbal cognition largely accounts for the patterns observed.

Morphological and syntactic skills in language samples of pre school aged children with autism: atypical development?

This study investigated whether children with autism have atypical development of morphological and syntactic skills, including whether they use rote learning to compensate for impaired morphological processing and acquire grammatical morphemes in an atypical order. Participants were children aged from 3-6 years who had autism (n = 17), developmental delay without autism (n = 7), and typically-developing children (n = 19). Language samples were taken from participants during the administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, and transcripts were coded using the Index of Productive Syntax, and for usage of Brown's grammatical morphemes. Participants were also administered an elicitation task requiring the application of inflections to non-words; the Wugs Task. The main finding of this study was that children with autism have unevenly developed morphological and syntactic sub-skills; they have skills which are a combination of intact, delayed, and atypical. It was also found that children with autism and children with developmental delays can acquire and use morphological rules. The implications of these findings are that, in order to maximize language acquisition for these children, clinicians need to utilize comprehensive language assessment tools and design interventions that are tailored to the child's strengths and weaknesses.

Lexical processing in individuals with high-functioning autism and Asperger's disorder

The presence or absence of clinically delayed language development prior to 3 years of age is a key, but contentious, clinical feature distinguishing autism from Asperger's disorder. The aim of this study was to examine language processing in children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's disorder (AD) using a task which taps lexical processing, a core language ability. Eleven individuals with HFA, 11 with AD and 11 typically developing (TD) individuals completed a masked priming task, a psycholinguistic paradigm that directly examines lexical processes. Within-group analyses revealed the AD and TD groups had intact lexical processing systems and orthographic processing of the written word. The outcomes for the HFA group were ambiguous, suggesting that their lexical processing system is either delayed or is structurally different. This suggests that fundamental differences in lexical processing exist between HFA and AD and remain evident later in development.

Mutual exclusivity in autism spectrum disorders: testing the pragmatic hypothesis

While there is ample evidence that children treat words as mutually exclusive, the cognitive basis of this bias is widely debated. We focus on the distinction between pragmatic and lexical constraints accounts. High-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) offer a unique perspective on this debate, as they acquire substantial vocabularies despite impoverished social-pragmatic skills. We tested children and adolescents with ASD in a paradigm examining mutual exclusivity for words and facts. Words were interpreted contrastively more often than facts. Word performance was associated with vocabulary size; fact performance was associated with social-communication skills. Thus mutual exclusivity does not appear to be driven by pragmatics, suggesting that it is either a lexical constraint or a reflection of domain-general learning processes.

An Investigation of Language Impairment in Autism: Implications for Genetic Subgroups

Autism involves primary impairments in both language and communication, yet in recent years the main focus of research has been on the communicative deficits that define the population. The study reported in this paper investigated language functioning in a group of 89 children diagnosed with autism using the ADI-R, and meeting DSM-IV criteria. The children, who were between 4- and 14- years-old were administered a battery of standardized language tests tapping phonological, lexical, and higher-order language abilities. The main findings were that among the children with autism there was significant heterogeneity in their language skills, although across all the children, articulation skills were spared. Different subgroups of children with autism were identified on the basis on their performance on the language measures. Some children with autism have normal language skills; for other children, their language skills are significantly below age expectations. The profile of performance across the standardized measures for the language-impaired children with autism was similar to the profile that defines the disorder specific language impairment (or SLI). The implications of this language impaired subgroup in autism for understanding the genetics and definition of both autism and SLI are discussed.

Personal pronouns and communicative engagement in autism

In three experimental conditions, we tested matched children with and without autism (n = 15 per group) for their comprehension and use of first person plural ('we') and third person singular ('he') pronouns, and examined whether such linguistic functioning related to their social interaction. The groups were indistinguishable in their comprehension and use of 'we' pronouns, although within each group, such usage was correlated with ratings of interpersonal connectedness with the collaborator. On the other hand, participants with autism were less likely to use third person pronouns or to show patterns of eye gaze reflecting engagement with an interlocutor's stance vis-à-vis a third person. In these settings, atypical third person pronoun usage seemed to reflect limited communicative engagement, but first person pronouns were relatively spared.

Pragmatic, lexical and grammatical abilities of autistic spectrum children

BACKGROUND

Development of grammatical, functional and lexical aspects in the language of children with autism spectrum disorders.

AIM

To analyze the development of grammatical, functional and lexical aspects in three different moments: initial assessment, after six and twelve months of language therapy.

METHOD

Participants of this study were ten boys with ages between 2:7 and 11:2 years, with psychiatric diagnosis within the autistic spectrum. Video recorded samples of a 30 minutes patient-therapist interaction were recorded in three different moments (therapy onset, after six and twelve months of therapy) for each subject. The first 15 minutes of each sample was transcribed for the analysis of the functional communicative profile. Grammatical and lexical aspects were analyzed through the transcription of 100 speech segments of each sample. All data were longitudinally compared within and between areas.

RESULTS

There were significant associations between the studied variables but no statistically significant differences along the studied period of language therapy.

CONCLUSION

There are associations between grammatical and pragmatic performances.

Grammaticality judgments in autism: deviance or delay

Language in autism has been the subject of intense interest, because communication deficits are central to the disorder, and because autism serves as an arena for testing theories of language acquisition. High-functioning older children with autism are often considered to have intact grammatical abilities, despite pragmatic impairments. Given the heterogeneity in language skills at younger ages, this assumption merits further investigation. Participants with autism (n=21, aged nine to seventeen years), matched on chronological age, receptive vocabulary and IQ, to 22 typically developing individuals, completed a grammaticality judgment task. Participants with autism were significantly less sensitive than controls, specifically for third person singular and present progressive marking. Performance interacted with sentence length, with lower sensitivity to errors occurring at the end of the longest stimulus sentences. Performance sensitivity was associated with onset of single word and phrase speech, and with severity of autistic symptomatology. Implications of findings are discussed.

Further defining the language impairment of autism: is there a specific language impairment subtype?

Some children with autism demonstrate poor nonword repetition--a deficit considered to be a psycholinguistic marker of specific language impairment (SLI). The present study examined whether there is an SLI subtype among children with autism. We compared the language abilities of children with SLI (n=34, M age=11;10 S.D.=2;3), and children with autism with (Apoor, n=18, M age=10;11 S.D.=3;1) and without (Aapp, n=16, M age=10;8 S.D.=2;7) structural language difficulties. Participants were administered battery of standardized language and memory tests. Although there were some similarities in the language profile of the SLI and Apoor groups, the two groups differed on the tests of oromotor ability and verbal short-term memory and showed a different pattern of errors on the nonword repetition task. These findings providing evidence against the idea of an SLI subtype in autism. Further analyses suggested that the nonword repetition deficits experienced by some children with autism may arise when there is substantial impairment in multiple autistic domains.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Readers will be introduced to (a) the current state of behavioral, cognitive and genetic research that has investigated the relation between SLI and autism, and (b) three hypotheses of why there exists similarity in the language characteristics of children with SLI and autism. Readers will then be taken through a detailed comparison of the language and memory abilities of group of children with each diagnosis. A theoretical model that seeks to explain the relation between these two disorders will be discussed.

Dissociable aspects of imitation: a study in autism

What does it mean for a child to imitate someone else? We tested matched groups of children with and without autism (n=16 for each group, with a mean chronological age of 11 years and a mean verbal mental age of 6 years) to investigate two potentially dissociable aspects of imitation: copying goal-directed actions, on the one hand, and imitating the "style" with which a person demonstrates those actions, on the other. Our hypothesis was that the latter, but not necessarily the former, kind of imitation reflects a special quality of interpersonal engagement in which one person identifies with another, and that the propensity to identify with others is specifically weak in autism. As predicted, participants with and without autism were similar in their ability to copy six relatively complex goal-directed actions but were significantly different in imitating the style with which six simpler goal-directed actions were executed, especially when style was incidental to accomplishing a goal. We interpret the findings in terms of a link among children's capacities for intersubjective engagement, imitation, and learning new ways to relate to objects.

Beyond pragmatics: morphosyntactic development in autism

Language acquisition research in autism has traditionally focused on high-level pragmatic deficits. Few studies have examined grammatical abilities in autism, with mixed findings. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by providing a detailed investigation of syntactic and higher-level discourse abilities in verbal children with autism, age 5 years. Findings indicate clear language difficulties that go beyond what would be expected based on developmental level; specifically, syntactic delays, impairments in discourse management and increased production of non-meaningful words (jargon). The present study indicates a highly specific pattern of language impairments, and importantly, syntactic delays, in a group of children with autism carefully matched on lexical level and non-verbal mental age with children with developmental delays and typical development.

Identification: the missing link between joint attention and imitation?

In this paper we outline our hypothesis that human intersubjective engagement entails identifying with other people. We tested a prediction derived from this hypothesis that concerned the relation between a component of joint attention and a specific form of imitation. The empirical investigation involved "blind" ratings of videotapes from a recent study in which we tested matched children with and without autism for their propensity to imitate the self-/other-orientated aspects of another person's actions. The results were in keeping with three a priori predictions, as follows: (a) children with autism contrasted with control participants in spending more time looking at the objects acted upon and less time looking at the tester; (b) participants with autism showed fewer "sharing" looks toward the tester, and although they also showed fewer "checking" and "orientating" looks, they were specifically less likely to show any sharing looks; and, critically, (c) within each group, individual differences in sharing looks (only) were associated with imitation of self-other orientation. We suggest that the propensity to adopt the bodily anchored psychological stance of another person is essential to certain forms of joint attention and imitation, and that a weak tendency to identify with others is pivotal for the developmental psychopathology of autism.

Children With Autism Illuminate the Role of Social Intention in Word Learning

To what extent do children with autism (AD) versus typically developing children (TD) rely on attentional and intentional cues to learn words? Four experiments compared 17 AD children (M age=5.08 years) with 17 language- and 17 mental-age-matched TD children (M ages=2.57 and 3.12 years, respectively) on nonverbal enactment and word-learning tasks. Results revealed variability in all groups, but particularly within the AD group. Performance on intention tasks was the most powerful predictor of vocabulary in the AD group but not in the TD groups. These findings suggest that word learning cannot be explained exclusively by either attentional or intentional processes, and they provide evidence of a special role for intentional understanding in the vocabulary development of AD children.

Narrative role-taking in autism

Are children with autism able to adopt, and shift among, the psychological perspectives of different people? Fifteen children with autism and 15 without autism, matched for chronological age and verbal ability, were given Feffer's (1970) role-taking task in which they were asked to tell and then re-tell stories from different protagonists' perspectives. The children with autism understood the task, adjusted narratives according to alternative viewpoints, and were similar to control participants in their use of mental state terms. Despite this, the children with autism achieved significantly lower scores for adopting different figures' perspectives, and for shifting among complementary viewpoints. The results illustrate aspects of social-cognitive impairment that extend beyond the children's limitations in 'theory of mind' understanding.

Lexical knowledge and lexical use in autism

One aspect of autistic language that has been infrequently researched is vocabulary and the conceptual knowledge underpinning individual words or word types. In this descriptive study we investigate anomalous vocabulary use in a 70,000-word corpus of conversational autistic language and examine evidence that concept formation, and hence vocabulary, is abnormal in autism. Particular attention is paid to the expression of artifact and temporal concepts which some believe may develop abnormally in autism. Little evidence is found of anomalous use of artifact terms, though errors with temporal (and also spatial) expressions are relatively common. We discuss why this may be and consider several potential explanations for why underlying lexical knowledge in autism may not necessarily be reflected in lexical use.

The Problem with Using Eye-Gaze to Infer Desire: A Deficit of Cue Inference in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Children with autism respond atypically to eye-gaze cues, arguably because they fail to understand that eye-gaze conveys mentalistic information. Three experiments investigated whether a difficulty in inferring desire from eye-gaze in autism reflects a failure to understand the mentalistic significance of eye-gaze, an inhibitory deficit or a deficit of cue inference. While there was an inhibitory component to the tasks, children with autism were no more affected by this than controls. In addition, individuals' impairment in inferring desire was not limited to social cues, but was also observed when desire was cued by more general cues. Consequently, children with autism may have a general deficit in using arbitrary cues to make inferences, which impacts particularly on their social development.