Implicit learning seems to come naturally for children with autism, but not for children with specific language impairment: Evidence from behavioral and ERP data

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are two neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication skills. These skills are thought to develop largely through implicit—or automatic—learning mechanisms. The aim of the current paper was to investigate the role of implicit learning abilities in the atypical development of communication skills in ASD and SLI. In the current study, we investigated Response Times (RTs) and Event Related Potentials (ERPs) during implicit learning on a Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task in a group of typically developing (TD) children (n = 17), a group of autistic children (n = 16), and a group of children with SLI (n = 13). Findings suggest that learning in both ASD and SLI are similar to that in TD. However, electrophysiological findings suggest that autistic children seem to rely mainly on more automatic processes (as reflected by an N2b component), whereas the children with SLI seem to rely on more controlled processes (as reflected by a P3 component). The TD children appear to use a combination of both learning mechanisms. These findings suggest that clinical interventions should aim at compensating for an implicit learning deficit in children with SLI, but not in children with ASD. Future research should focus on developmental differences in implicit learning and related neural correlates in TD, ASD, and SLI. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1050–1061. © 2018 The Authors Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Lay SummaryAutism and Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are two disorders characterized by problems in social communication and language. Social communication and language are believed to be learned in an automatic way. This is called “implicit learning.” We have found that implicit learning is intact in autism. However, in SLI there seems different brain activity during implicit learning. Maybe children with SLI learn differently, and maybe this different learning makes it more difficult for them to learn language.

Behind the Scenes of Developmental Language Disorder: Time to Call Neuropsychology Back on Stage

“…Regarding children with DLD, it seems that at least some of the bottom–up processes are impaired in this population. Specifically, the unconscious attention mechanisms associated with implicit learning tend to be weaker in these children compared to their TD peers (see for reviews: Lammertink et al, 2017; Zwart et al, 2017, 2018). However, it is not clear whether these poorer abilities in perceiving statistical regularities are domain-specific (e.g., visual vs. auditory statistical learning skills); and also if there is a difference between verbal and non-verbal types of tasks within the auditory domain.…”

Computations of confidence are modulated by mentalizing ability

“…Finally, participants received trial-by-trial feedback on their confidence ratings, where they were rewarded for reporting higher confidence on correct trials and lower confidence on error trials (i.e., better metacognition was incentivized). This may have created a disadvantage for autistic participants who may have difficulties with interpreting and learning from ambiguous or implicit feedback (Broadbent & Stokes, 2013;Greene et al, 2019;Reed, 2019;Robic et al, 2015;Sapey-Triomphe et al, 2018;Zwart et al, 2018). In other words, it could be that the lower metacognitive ability in the autistic group was a consequence of failing to maximize rewards on the basis of the ambiguous feedback.…”

Eye‐Tracking Reveals Absent Repetition Learning Across the Autism Spectrum: Evidence From a Passive Viewing Task

“…SRT tasks require participants to respond as quickly as possible to stimuli that appear in repeating (or random) sequences of screen locations, and a meta‐analysis by Foti et al [2015] showed that out of seven such studies, only one [Mostofsky, Goldberg, Landa, & Denckla, 2000] indicated reduced learning in autistic as compared to typically developing participants. At least three studies since this review have further corroborated generally preserved SRT performance in autism [Zwart, Vissers, Kessles, & Maes, 2018; Zwart, Vissers, & Maes, 2018; Zwart, Vissers, van der Meij, Kessles, & Maes, 2017].…”