Comparison of Grammar in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: The Case of Binding in Williams Syndrome and Autism With and Without Language Impairment

Alexandra Perovic,Nadya Modyanova,Ken Wexler

doi:10.1080/10489223.2013.766742

Alexandra Perovic, Nadya Modyanova + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2013.766742

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Abstract

This study investigates whether distinct neurodevelopmental disorders show distinct patterns of impairments in particular grammatical abilities and the relation of those grammatical patterns to general language delays and intellectual disabilities. We studied two disorders (autism and Williams syndrome [WS]) and two distinct properties (Principle A that governs reflexives and Principle B that, together with its associated pragmatic rule, governs pronouns) of the binding module of grammar. These properties are known to have markedly different courses of acquisition in typical development. We compare the knowledge of binding in children with autism with language impairment (ALI) and those with normal language (ALN) to that of children with WS, matched on age to the ALN group, and on age and nonverbal mental age (MA) to the ALI group, as well as to two groups of typically developing (TD) controls, matched on nonverbal MA to ALI and ALN groups. Our results reveal a remarkably different pattern of comprehension of personal pronouns and reflexives in ALI as opposed to ALN, WS, and two groups of TD controls. All five groups demonstrated an equal delay in their comprehension of personal pronouns, in line with widely reported delays in TD literature, argued to be due to delayed pragmatic abilities. However, and most strikingly, the ALI group also showed a pronounced difficulty in comprehension of reflexive pronouns, and particularly of the knowledge that the antecedent of a reflexive must c-command it. The revealed pattern confirms the existence of a particular impairment concerning Principle A in this module of grammar, unrelated to general language delays or cognitive deficits generally present in a large portion of individuals with autism as well as WS, or to general pragmatic deficits, known to be particularly prevalent in the population with autism.

Highlights

Binding is the linguistic submodule that guides our interpretation of reflexive and personal pronouns
To extend the findings of Perovic et al (2012) further, and try to disentangle the role of different factors affecting grammatical development in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) flagged in the preceding, here we investigate the knowledge of binding in a large sample of children with ASD, n = 48, and a sample of children with Williams syndrome (WS), an etiologically unrelated developmental disorder whose genetic basis is well understood and that shares the features of language delay and intellectual impairment frequently found in ASD, as well as deficits in social abilities
A striking similarity was revealed in the performance of the four participant groups, ALN, WS and the two typically developing (TD) groups: no differences were observed between estimated mean probabilities

Summary

Introduction

Binding is the linguistic submodule that guides our interpretation of reflexive and personal pronouns. Another name that has been used is ADPBE, where A stands for “apparent,” to reflect the fact that the error only appears to be a Principle B error, but is really something else These questions of pragmatics/processing make it compelling to study in populations known for pervasive pragmatic and suspected grammatical deficits, such as the disorders on the autism spectrum. Individuals with WS are known for a profound delay in visuospatial reasoning, while the opposite is the case in ASD (Mitchell & Ropar 2004). When it comes to language, the picture is more complicated. More recent reports carried out with a wider range of ages, control groups, and a detailed look at particular aspects of grammar, show that those aspects of grammar that mature early in typical development are relatively unimpaired (e.g., question formation: Zukowski 2001), but those that mature late in typical development (such as passives of psychological verbs and raising constructions) are exceptionally delayed, and possibly never acquired (Perovic & Wexler 2007; Perovic & Wexler 2010)

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