Abstract
In this study, we employed an eye-gaze paradigm to explore whether children (ages 8-12) and adolescents (ages 12-18) with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are able to use prosodic cues to determine the syntactic structure of an utterance. Persons with ASD were compared to typically developing (TD) peers matched on age, IQ, gender, and receptive language abilities. The stimuli were syntactically ambiguous but had a prosodic break that indicated the appropriate interpretation (feel the frog … with the feather vs. feel … the frog with the feather). We found that all groups were equally sensitive to the initial prosodic cues that were presented. Children and teens with ASD used prosody to interpret the ambiguous phrase as rapidly and efficiently as their TD peers. However, when a different cue was presented in subsequent trials, the younger ASD group was more likely to respond in a manner consistent with the initial prosodic cue rather than the new one. Eye-tracking data indicated that both younger groups (ASD and TD) had trouble shifting their interpretation as the prosodic cue changed, but the younger TD group was able to overcome this interference and produce an action consistent with the prosodic cue.
Highlights
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication, along with a propensity to engage in repetitive behaviors or have restricted interests (APA, 2000)
Participants were excluded from this study: if they had a Full Scale IQ (FSIQ), Verbal IQ (VIQ), or CELF-4 Receptive Language Index (RLI) score below 80; if English was not their first language and the primary language spoken at home; or if they had any uncorrected vision or hearing deficits that would have interfered with study administration
Whenever we found an interaction between one of the participant variables (Age or Diagnosis) and Prosody, we split the sample on that participant variable and conducted separate analyses of the two groups to understand the nature of the effect
Summary
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication, along with a propensity to engage in repetitive behaviors or have restricted interests (APA, 2000). The severity of these deficits and the ways in which they are expressed vary considerably. Most children diagnosed with ASD had severe language impairments or delays, and researchers estimated that as many as half were non-verbal (Lord & Paul, 1997). More recent estimates suggest that 80-86% of children with ASDs have some functional language (Lord, Risi, & Pickles, 2004). We will be referring to children with this profile as highly verbal
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