Children’s Pronoun Interpretation Problems Are Related to Theory of Mind and Inhibition, But Not Working Memory

Abstract

In several languages, including English and Dutch, children’s acquisition of the interpretation of object pronouns (e.g., him) is delayed compared to that of reflexives (e.g., himself). Various syntactic and pragmatic explanations have been proposed to account for this delay in children’s acquisition of pronoun interpretation. This study aims to provide more insight into this delay by investigating potential cognitive mechanisms underlying this delay. Dutch-speaking children between 6 and 12 years old with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 47), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; n = 36) or typical development (TD; n = 38) were tested on their interpretation and production of object pronouns and reflexives and on theory of mind, working memory, and response inhibition. It was found that all three groups of children had difficulty with pronoun interpretation and that their performance on pronoun interpretation was associated with theory of mind and inhibition. These findings support an explanation of object pronoun interpretation in terms of perspective taking, according to which listeners need to consider the speaker’s perspective in order to block coreference between the object pronoun and the subject of the same sentence. Unlike what is predicted by alternative theoretical accounts, performance on pronoun interpretation was not associated with working memory, and the children made virtually no errors in their production of object pronouns. As the difficulties with pronoun interpretation were similar for children with ASD, children with ADHD and typically developing children, this suggests that certain types of perspective taking are unaffected in children with ASD and ADHD.

Individual Differences in Spatial Orientation Modulate Perspective Taking in Listeners

“…However, it is possible that our experimental context may have restricted the potential to observe an influence of these factors. The role of inhibitory control, for instance, has been primarily noted in developmental and non-neurotypical populations (Frick & Baumeler, 2017;Kuijper, Hartman, & Hendriks, 2021). Healthy young adults such as our participants, on the other hand, may as a group already be functioning at a level beyond that called for in perspective taking.…”

How children acquire pronouns

“…This explanation holds that when two forms partially overlap in their reference (as is the case for reflexives and pronouns in child language in English and several other languages) or when two forms partially overlap in their use (as is the case for referential choice in child language, see below), perspective taking is needed to block the overlap and thus give rise to a symmetric pattern of forms and their associated meanings (Hendriks andSpenader 2006, Hendriks 2014). Supporting evidence for this perspective-taking explanation is the finding of an association between object pronoun interpretation and theory of mind abilities in children, whereas no such association was found between object pronoun interpretation and, for example, working memory capacity (Kuijper et al 2021).…”

The Influence of ASD Severity on Parental Overload: The Moderating Role of Parental Well-Being and the ASD Pragmatic Level

“…They also have a common pathology in language ability [ 23 , 24 ], lack reciprocity in social discourse, find difficulty in changing the topic of conversation, and use irrelevant details of discourse [ 3 ]. They have difficulties with interpreting object pronouns (e.g., him), which is delayed compared to that of reflexives (e.g., himself) [ 25 ]. Brief interventions are reduced to “question-answer”; they do not share past personal experiences [ 21 ]; they show a deficit in understanding figurative language (humorous elements, prosody, facial expression, gaze, non-verbal language) [ 26 ]; and they are unable to capture the illocutionary force of statements.…”