Abstract
The central symptom of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is deficiency in social communication, which is generally viewed as being caused by pragmatic impairment (PI). PI is difficulty in using language appropriately in social situations. Studies have confirmed that PI is the result of neurological, cognitive, linguistic, and sensorimotor dysfunctions involving intricately intertwined factors. To elucidate the whole picture of this impairment, an approach from a multifaceted perspective fusing those factors is necessary. To this end, comprehensive PI mapping is a must, since no comprehensive mapping has yet been developed. The aim of this research is to present a model of annotation scheme development and corpus construction to efficiently visualize and quantify for statistical investigation occurrences of PI, which enables comprehensive mapping of PI in the spoken language of Japanese ASD individuals. We constructed system networks (lexicogrammatical option systems speakers make choices from) in the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, from which we developed an annotation scheme to comprehensively cover PI. Since system network covers all possible lexicogrammatical choices in linguistic interaction, it enables a comprehensive view of where and in what lexicogrammar PI occurs. Based on this annotation scheme, we successfully developed the Corpus of ASD + Typically Developed Spoken Language consisting of texts from 1,187 audiotaped tasks performed by 186 ASD and 106 typically developed subjects, accommodating approximately 1.07 million morphemes. Moreover, we were successful in the automatization of the annotation process by machine learning, accomplishing a 90 percent precision rate. We exemplified the mapping procedure with a focus on the spoken use of negotiating particles. Our model corpus is applicable to any language by incorporating our method of constructing the annotation scheme, and would give impetus to defining PI from a cross-linguistic point of view, which is needed because PI of ASD reflects cross-linguistic differences.
Highlights
BackgroundAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as well as by restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities [1]
The core symptom is deficiency in social communication which is caused by pragmatic impairment (PI) [2, 3]
Pragmatics belongs to the fields of philosophy and linguistics [4], where its theoretical framework is perceived as centered solely on language and its discussion is completed within that frame [5,6,7,8]
Summary
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as well as by restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities [1]. Studies of PI in the clinical field have dealt with nonverbal aspects of communication, such as gaze, gesture, posture, and social rapport, rather than focusing on language [4]. Dronker et al, in their investigation of severe Broca’s aphasia and deafness, found that nonverbal social skills and abilities existed in parallel with linguistic abilities, both of which could be treated as independent phenomena [9]. PI is not an ASD-specific phenomenon but is seen in a wide range of disorders, such as aphasia, right hemisphere damage, cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer’s disease, and traumatic brain injury [10,11,12]
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