Autism Language Research Articles

"Look Who's Talking": Language Patterns in Autistic and Non-Autistic Youth Across Different Conversation Partners.

Autistic individuals have varying levels of verbal fluency which can impact social outcomes. Although 70-75% of autistic individuals have functional language, findings regarding language patterns (syntax and semantics) in autistic adolescents remain inconclusive. Additionally, previous studies of language complexity use narrative samples, which do not capture autistic language in conversation. The current study examined language patterns in autistic (n = 20) and non-autistic (n = 17) youth aged 9-16 years during a conversation with a familiar versus unfamiliar adult. The study aimed to address gaps in the literature regarding autistic youth's language patterns, particularly in conversation, and the impact of speaking partners. Recordings of the conversation task were transcribed using SALT software conventions to yield measures of language production. Average length of communication units was higher among autistic compared to non-autistic youth, and among all youth when talking with familiar compared to unfamiliar partners. Youth speech also reflected greater linguistic diversity with familiar interlocutors, with no differences between autistic and non-autistic youth. Additionally, familiar interlocutors used more speech elicitation strategies (i.e., questions, prompts) than unfamiliar interlocutors across groups and interlocutors speaking with autistic youth used more speech elicitation strategies. These findings identify important similarities and differences between autistic and non-autistic youth and interlocutor speech that provide a better understanding of language patterns in autism. Importantly, this study can increase understanding and enhance support of autistic youth by highlighting that some aspects of autistic youth's language patterns in the context of conversation may be currently underestimated.

The repetition of passives in Mandarin-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder and Autistic children with language impairment

This study investigates the language profiles of Mandarin-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and those with Autistic Language Impairment (ALI) through their repetition of passive sentences. It examines both long and short passives, predicting worse performance for the former structures than the latter. 15 children with DLD (aged 4;0–6;3), 18 children with ALI (aged 4;7–6;0), and 22 typically developing age-matched (TDA) children (aged 4;4–5;11) repeated 10 long and 10 short passives, the latter including manner adverbs to match the long passives’ length. Unexpectedly, no clear advantage for short over long passives emerged across groups. Both children with DLD and those with ALI performed less well than their TDA peers, with children with ALI slightly outperforming those with DLD. Both groups employed non-target and simpler responses to mitigate syntactic complexity, with notable differences in strategy between children with DLD and those with ALI. The study reveals syntactic difficulties in children with DLD and ALI, with more pronounced impairment in DLD. The Edge Feature Underspecification Hypothesis may account for these challenges, suggesting that the underspecified EF [+Topic] leads to alternative strategies. Additionally, the difficulty with manner adverbs might contribute to challenges with short passives, and children with ALI showed more pragmatic errors.

Early trajectories and moderators of autistic language profiles: A longitudinal study in preschoolers.

Language development can greatly vary among autistic children. Children who struggle with language acquisition often face many challenges and experience lower quality of life. However, little is known about the early language trajectories of autistic preschoolers and their moderators. Autistic language can be stratified into three profiles. Language unimpaired experience little to no language difficulties; language impaired show significant difficulties in language; minimally verbal never develop functional language. In this study, we used a longitudinal sample of preschoolers with autism and with typical development (aged 1.5-5.7 years). We replicated the three language profiles through a data-driven approach. We also found that different factors modulated the language outcome within each group. For instance, non-verbal cognition at age 2.4 moderated the participants' attribution to each language profile. Moreover, early intervention moderated verbal outcome in the language impaired profile. In conclusion, we provided a detailed description of how autistic preschoolers acquire language, and what factors might influence their trajectories. Our findings could inspire more personalized intervention for early autistic language difficulties.

Normal but Different: Autistic Adolescents Who Score Within Normal Ranges on Standardized Language Tests Produce Frequent Linguistic Irregularities in Spontaneous Discourse.

A substantial minority of autistic individuals score within typical ranges on standard language tests, suggesting that autism does not necessarily affect language acquisition. This idea is reflected in current diagnostic criteria for autism, wherein language impairment is no longer included. However, some work has suggested that probing autistic speakers' language carefully may reveal subtle differences between autistic and nonautistic people's language that cannot be captured by standardized language testing. The current study aims to test this idea, by determining whether a group of autistic and nonautistic individuals who score similarly on a standardized test show differences in the number of unconventional and erroneous language features they produce in a spontaneous language sample. Thirty-eight older children and adolescents (19 autistic; 19 nonautistic), between the ages of 10 and 18, were recruited. Both participant groups scored within normal ranges on standardized language and IQ tests. Participants engaged in a "double interview" with an experimenter, during which they were first asked questions by the experimenter about themselves, and then they switched roles, so that it was the participant's turn to ask the experimenter questions. Participants' language during the interview was transcribed and analyzed for linguistic irregularities, including both semantic anomalies and morphosyntactic errors. Group membership accounted for significant variance in irregularity frequency; autistic participants produced more linguistic irregularities than nonautistic participants. Scores on a standardized language test did not improve model fit. Secondary analyses involving irregularity type (semantic vs. morphosyntactic) showed that group differences were primarily driven by relatively high numbers of semantic unconventionalities produced by the autistic group. While the autistic group made more morphosyntactic errors than the nonautistic group, differences in these numbers were only marginally significant. These findings suggest that a commonly used standardized language test does not adequately predict the number and perhaps type of language irregularities produced by some older autistic children and adolescents during spontaneous discourse. Results also suggest that differences in language use, especially semantic differences, may characterize autistic language, even the language produced by people who score within normal ranges on standardized language tests. It is debatable whether differences reflect underlying language impairments and/or a linguistic style adopted/preferred by autistic speakers. In this paper, we discuss both possibilities and offer suggestions to future research for teasing these possibilities apart.

Autism Spectrum Disorder: Developing ESL Proficiency via Visual Teaching Tools in International Schools of China

The effectiveness of using video-based instruction to teach English to young Chinese autistic language learners is the focus of the following article. The present study employed several methods such as online questionnaires, commentaries, interviews, and quantitative and qualitative methodologies to assess data and accomplish its objectives. The research’s relevance is limited by the reality that Chinese students struggle academically and find it difficult to socialize with their peers on a daily basis. The purpose of this study is to present the results of educating young Chinese autistic students through video-based instruction and visual learning activities. The research’s practical value is strongly reinforced by the content’s usefulness in teaching English to students with special needs. The results demonstrate that visual learning activities and video-based education promote inclusivity in the classroom and encourage peer social engagement.

The autistic pseudosignifier: Imaginary dialectization of signs in the clinic of autism

Specificities in language and speech development are a defining feature of autism. Several psychoanalysts have hypothesized that these specificities originate in a unique mode of access to language that exclusively relies on signs rather than signifiers. Compared to the flexibility and dynamism of a language made of signifiers, a language made of signs is rigid, cumbersome, and poor in its capacity to encode complex concepts. This article investigates the supplementary methods that autistic subjects adopt to compensate for these setbacks, methods that enable them to encode complex concepts into their vocabulary using iconic signs. These methods are then developed into a psychoanalytic theory on the use of iconic signs in the strengthening of autistic language in the context of art therapy. A variety of case studies are then used to illustrate how newly gained access to a level of conceptual complexity can also bring dramatic changes to their lives.

Pragmatic competence, autistic language use and the basic properties of human language

AbstractThe unique linguistic profile of autistic people urges linguists to address the divergences in human language, its acquisition and use among major linguistic perspectives. Fitting with the dual roles of language (thought and communication), this paper adopts an internal pragmatic competence (IPC) and a (similar) pragmatic competence for external communication (PCEC) to elucidate how autistic linguistic profile discloses the divergences between nativism and constructionism on language use and acquisition (ultimately language proper). IPC justifies why autistic people resort not to mind‐reading but to self‐sufficient mental interactions among organism‐internal submodules or nearly intact grammatical subsystems when abstractly processing linguistic and communicative needs, contra constructionists' assumption of sole intersubjective language use. PCEC, required for facilitating the authentic intersubjective language use, explains how the dysfunction of modular interactions and their interactions with outside contexts leads to autistics' sociopragmatic impairment and the double empathy gap. In this way, the divergences, along with the possible reconciliation between the two perspectives, can be expounded.

Caregiver Implemented Dialogic Reading: Impact on Children with and without Autism in Brazil

There is evidence about the effectiveness of using caregiver-implemented, shared book reading protocols for mitigating language and literacy deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In Brazil, studies of this nature are scarce but essential for identifying successful early intervention practices for a population that has significantly grown in the last three decades. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the effects of Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning (RECALL), an intervention protocol that employs dialogic reading principles on the language and literacy skills of a 3-year-old child with ASD and a 4-year-old typically developing peer. Using a single-subject A-B research design, the effects of RECALL, employed by mothers, on their children's responses were evaluated. The results revealed that: (a) average effect size for strategy use following caregiver training was large for the mother of the child with ASD (Tau-U = 0,7) and moderate for the mother of the typically developing child (Tau-U = 0,5) ; (b) both children became more responsive, significantly increasing the frequency of communication interactions following caregiver intervention (Tau-U = 1); (d) the child with typical development showed an increase in the frequency of correct and spontaneous responses, and (c) the intervention was positively evaluated by the caregivers. Adaptations of the protocol, as well as its limitations, are discussed.

Caregiver Implemented Dialogic Reading: impact on children with and without autism in Brazil

There is evidence about the effectiveness of using caregiver-implemented, shared book reading protocols for mitigating language and literacy deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In Brazil, studies of this nature are scarce but essential for identifying successful early intervention practices for a population that has significantly grown in the last three decades. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the effects of Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning (RECALL), an intervention protocol that employs dialogic reading principles on the language and literacy skills of a 3-year-old child with ASD and a 4-year-old typically developing peer. Using a single-subject A-B research design, the effects of RECALL, employed by mothers, on their children's responses were evaluated. The results revealed that: (a) average effect size for strategy use following caregiver training was large for the mother of the child with ASD (Tau-U = 0,7) and moderate for the mother of the typically developing child (Tau-U = 0,5) ; (b) both children became more responsive, significantly increasing the frequency of communication interactions following caregiver intervention (Tau-U = 1); (d) the child with typical development showed an increase in the frequency of correct and spontaneous responses, and (c) the intervention was positively evaluated by the caregivers. Adaptations of the protocol, as well as its limitations, are discussed.

Comprehension of core grammar in diverse samples of Mandarin-acquiring preschool children with ASD

Abstract In this review, we summarize studies investigating comprehension of three core grammatical structures (Subject-Verb-Object word order, grammatical aspect and wh-questions) in diverse samples of Mandarin-acquiring preschoolers with ASD, all utilizing the Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL) paradigm. Results showed that children with ASD, though they were delayed in chronological age and expressive language (including significantly lower vocabulary production scores), acquired various grammatical constructions similarly to their typically developing peers. Moreover, Mandarin-acquiring preschoolers with ASD demonstrated similar acquisition patterns of these three core grammatical structures, as has been reported in previous IPL studies among English-acquiring children with ASD (Naigles & Fein, 2017). Thus, the results testify that universal underlying mechanisms are playing vital roles in grammatical acquisition of children with ASD across languages (e.g., the setting of word order parameters, the preservation of functional morphemes, the universal operation of WH-Movement), despite their pervasive social cognition impairments. These findings suggest that core grammatical knowledge may be preserved in children with ASD, even in the face of radical differences in language environment and social/communicative deficits, supporting the contribution of the language faculty in autistic language acquisition. The results shed light on the sharp contrast between linguistic competence (governed by the internal computational system of the language faculty) vs. linguistic performance (affected by loci of impairment in the sensory-motor and the conceptual-intentional interfaces) in ASD. Furthermore, the results highlight the dissociation between the lexical vs. the grammatical modules in ASD, supporting a modular view of the diverse language domains in the language faculty.

Language Disorder Analysis of an Autistic Savant in the Rain Man Movie

Language is a basic need to our existence of life since speaking, listening, reading, and writing are such fundamental aspects of our daily lives. Those aspects are substantial in establishing social interaction and seizing fabulous achievements as well. However, some people suffered from injured brain, mental retardation, and autism who experienced difficulties such as speech disorder and language disorder. This research was designed to identify types of words utterances and types of language disorder that produced by an autistic savant character in the Rain Man movie. By conducting qualitative research with psycholinguistic approaches, this study revealed the autistic savant characters of the producing utterances, namely articulation disorder, phonological disorder, voice disorder and repetition. By developing people’s knowledge and awareness on the autistic language disorder, this study enlightened people to communicate and understand autistic person in their surroundings and prevented miscommunication as well. Further research is expected to be administered, particularly on an autistic woman to explore comprehensive knowledge and understanding on autistic language disorder.

Effects of Dialogic Reading on the Vocabulary Knowledge of Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACT Reading comprehension difficulties have been associated with poor vocabulary knowledge of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Research has shown that Dialogic Reading (DR) interventions may remediate these deficits. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two DR intervention protocols on the vocabulary knowledge of four preschoolers with ASD and four age-matched typically developing children. The first was RECALL (Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning), which combines DR with evidence-based instructional support to enhance the learning of children with ASD. The second was Adapted Shared Reading (ASR), which consisted of DR question prompts and no additional support. Using a randomised ABAB phase-order within series design, eight participants were exposed to at least four RECALL and four ASR treatment phases. This design allows the comparison of two different conditions (A [ASR] and B [RECALL]). Despite both treatments being successful at teaching vocabulary to the eight participants, greater vocabulary gains were identified in the RECALL condition. Adaptations of shared reading and the use of RECALL in inclusive preschool scenarios are further discussed.

Assessment of Throwing Patterns in Young Adults Diagnosed with Low-Expressive Language Autism and Severe Communication Disorder

Assessment of Throwing Patterns in Young Adults Diagnosed with Low-Expressive Language Autism and Severe Communication Disorder

Review of Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe, Julia Miele Rodas (2018)


 
 
 Julia Miele Rodas offers Autistic Disturbances: Theorizing Autism Poetics from the DSM to Robinson Crusoe as a tome of resistant literary praxis. So that we might allow ‘disordered’ to claim poetic voice- that we might recognize the celebration of this voice in our culturally treasured texts, and rather than require retroactive diagnosis, we simply allow these voices to be recognized as worthy- and Autistic. At last, a text which explores autistic language: allowing for its ironies without claiming it to be paradoxical; giving shape to its cultural consistencies without constraining it to a pathologized rigidity; allowing for both meaning where a reader might suspect none and none where a reader might insist on inserting one; and all while refusing to stigmatize, pathologize, medicalize, problematize, or even to diagnose.
 
 

Brief Report: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of RECALL (Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning) for Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

This study investigated the effects of a parent-implemented dialogic reading approach-Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Learning (RECALL)-on the engagement in reading and inference-making ability for preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Thirty-one preschoolers (mean age = 5.90years, SD = 0.69; 26 boys, 5 girls) were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Six weeks of RECALL significantly enhanced story comprehension, emotion knowledge, and reading engagement among preschoolers in the treatment group. This might be the first randomized controlled trial testing the effects of RECALL on children with ASD. Our findings suggest that additional instructional support such as the application of a prompting hierarchy during dialogic reading might help children with ASD reap greater benefits from shared book reading.

We’re All Strangers Here

SummaryThis piece forms part of my linguistic ethnographic doctoral thesis, investigating the ways in which mutual understanding does and does not break down between autistic and non‐autistic people. As an autistic researcher researching autistic language use, it became increasingly apparent throughout my research that I could not separate myself and my ”insider perspective” from my work. Autoethnographic creative writing offers a way to reflect on my inter‐relation with the subject matter as well as ”giving voice” to those [autistic people more generally] who are often overlooked. Autism is heterogeneous in its nature and autistic people are diverse in ways that popular conventions and stereotypes don’t often afford. In this piece I represent three very different characters—each autistic—to give some insight into the breadth of what ”autistic‐ness” can be. The first character is based on myself, exploring the tensions found in being an autist within the academy. The two fictionalized characters are composites of my research participants, based on my ethnographic observations.

From anonymous subject to engaged stakeholder: Enriching participant experience in autistic-language-use research

The Talking Together community-engagement pilot project brought together pairs of autistic and non-autistic strangers to: (1) talk about their experiences of loneliness in their local city; and (2) think about potential, co-produced responses to the problem. The project had evolved as a secondary aim, from an initial need to acquire naturalistic conversation data for my linguistic PhD research investigating a theoretical reframing of autistic language use as ‘different’ rather than ‘deficient’. The desire to make the data collection a meaningful experience for the participants in its own right was central to the research design, and so the Talking Together loneliness project was devised as a way to achieve this. However, it was not until the research was under way that the potential for valuable, immediate impact became apparent. This article reflects on the successes and challenges of the Talking Together pilot as a piece of autistic-led participatory research, and explores how the principles of engaged, participatory research can be applied so as to maximize impact, even where engagement may not be a primary aim. It also explores the ‘participatory’ nature of participatory research where the researcher belongs to the marginalized stakeholder group.

Using a Concept Map With RECALL to Increase the Comprehension of Science Texts for Children With Autism

Learning science is important for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as knowledge of science allows students to understand their natural world, and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is increasingly emphasized in schools. Reading to learn science is, therefore, a vital skill in today’s schools for all students. Using a single-case reversal design, this study evaluated the effectiveness of Reading to Engage Children with Autism in Language and Literacy (RECALL; a shared reading intervention) combined with a concept map on the ability of young children with ASD to answer comprehension questions from science text. Two 5-year-old boys with ASD participated in this study. Results indicated that RECALL combined with a concept map was effective in increasing participants’ correct responding to comprehension questions from science text. Implications for intervention and research are discussed.

Creatine Transporter Deficiency in Two Brothers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

BackgroundCreatine transporter deficiency (CTD) is a treatable, X-linked, inborn error of metabolism.Case characteristicsTwo brothers with autism spectrum disorder were diagnosed with CTD at the ages of 17 and 12 years. Both were found to have a previously reported hemizygous p.408delF (c.1216_1218delTTC) deletion mutation.OutcomeBoth patients were given creatine monohydrate, L-arginine, L-glycine and S-adenosylmethionine, which partially improved the behavioral problems.MessageSerum creatinine levels, creatine peak at brain MR spectroscopy or creatine/creatinine ratio in urine should be evaluated to identify CTD in children with autistic behavior and language disorders.

Autistic Language Processing by Patterns Detection

The main goal of this article is to present an approach that allows the automatic management of autistic communication patterns by processing audio and video from the therapy session of individuals suffering autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Such patients usually have social and communication alterations that make it difficult to evaluate the meaning of those expressions. As their communicational skills may have different degrees of variation, it is very hard to understand the semantics behind the verbal behavior. The current work is based on previous work on machine learning for individual performance evaluation. Statistics show that autistic verbal behavior are physically expressed by repetitive sounds and related movements that are evident and stereotyped. The works of Leo Kanner and Ángel Riviere are also considered here. Using machine learning and neural nets with certain set of parameters, it is possible to automatically detect patterns in audio and video recording of patient's performance, which is an interesting opportunity to communicate with ASD patients.