How Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Developmental Language Disorder, and Typical Language Learn to Produce Global and Local Semantic Features.

Allison Gladfelter,Kacy L Barron

doi:10.3390/brainsci10040231

Allison Gladfelter, Kacy L Barron

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10040231

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Journal: Brain sciences	Publication Date: Apr 11, 2020
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Northern Illinois University

Abstract

A local processing bias, often considered a cognitive style unique to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), may influence the types of semantic features acquired by children with ASD and could contribute to weaknesses in word learning. Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) also struggle to learn semantic aspects of words, but this cognitive style has not been ascribed to children with DLD. The purpose of this study was to explore whether global–local processing differences influence the type of semantic features children with ASD, DLD, and their neurotypical peers learn to produce when learning new words. Novel word definitions produced by 36 school-aged children (12 with ASD, 12 with DLD, and 12 with typical language) who participated in an extended word-learning paradigm were used to extract newly learned semantic features. These semantic features were then coded for global and local attributes and analyzed to detect whether there were differences between groups. Results indicated that the children with ASD and DLD produced more global, rather than local, semantic features in their definitions than the children with typical language. An over-reliance on global, rather than local, features in children with ASD and DLD may reflect deficits in depth of word knowledge.

Highlights

There are ongoing conversations over whether autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) are different ends on a continuum of the same disorder [1,2,3].Shared traits and similar performance on language tasks perpetuate this discussion
This study aimed to determine whether the global or local semantic features produced during a definition task could be used to differentiate children with ASD from those with DLD and typical language development (TLD)
Global–local processing differences influenced the type of semantic features produced by children with ASD and with DLD compared to their typical peers on a word learning task, but not in the ways expected

Summary

Introduction

There are ongoing conversations over whether autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) are different ends on a continuum of the same disorder [1,2,3].Shared traits and similar performance on language tasks perpetuate this discussion. There are ongoing conversations over whether autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) are different ends on a continuum of the same disorder [1,2,3]. Children with ASD perform poorly on the nonword repetition task [4], a hallmark weakness for children with DLD [5]. Pragmatic deficits are a clinical marker for ASD, but children with DLD can display social communication weaknesses as well [7]. This overlap leads practicing clinicians to report that ASD and DLD can make for a “difficult differential diagnosis” [8]

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