Processes of Language Acquisition in Children With Autism: Evidence from Preferential Looking

Abstract

Two language acquisition processes (comprehension preceding production of word order, the noun bias) were examined in 2- and 3-year-old children (n=10) with autistic spectrum disorder and in typically developing 21-month-olds (n=13). Intermodal preferential looking was used to assess comprehension of subject-verb-object word order and the tendency to map novel words onto objects rather than actions. Spontaneous speech samples were also collected. Results demonstrated significant comprehension of word order in both groups well before production. Moreover, children in both groups consistently showed the noun bias. Comprehension preceding production and the noun bias appear to be robust processes of language acquisition, observable in both typical and language-impaired populations.

Lexical composition in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

“…The two groups did not differ in noun bias, consistent with Swenson et al (2007), but they did differ in their tendency to show a shape bias (i.e. interpreting a novel word as referring to an object's shape rather than its color or texture).…”

“…The literature on lexical development in children with ASD raises the same issue. The 'delay' view is supported by the ways lexical development in children with ASD resembles typical lexical development, namely that children with ASD (a) tend to acquire more words in their lexicons as they get older (Charman et al, 2003 ;Smith et al, 2007) ; (b) vary widely in lexicon size (Charman et al, 2003 ;Ellis Weismer et al, 2010 ;Ellis Weismer et al, 2011 ;Luyster et al, 2007 ;Luyster et al, 2008); (c) show a predominance of nouns and roughly the same percentages of nouns, verbs and closed-class terms as typically developing children with similar vocabulary sizes (Charman et al, 2003); (d) exhibit a noun bias in laboratory preferential looking studies (Swenson et al, 2007 ;Tek et al, 2008) ; and (e) manifest high correlations between parent-reported vocabulary scores and directly administered expressive language tests (Ellis Weismer et al, 2010 ;Luyster et al, 2008). On the other hand, the 'deviance ' view is supported by the ways in which lexical development in children with ASD differs from typical development, such as (a) a much higher percentage of severe vocabulary delays (Charman et al, 2003, Ellis Weismer et al, 2011Luyster et al, 2007 ;Luyster et al, 2008) ; (b) much greater variation in rate of vocabulary growth over time (Smith et al, 2007) ; (c) weaker associations between lexicon size and grammatical complexity than late talkers with the same-size lexicons (Ellis Weismer et al, 2011) ; failure to show a shape bias on novel word tasks (Tek et al, 2008).…”

Use of the ADOS for Assessing Spontaneous Expressive Language in Young Children With ASD: A Comparison of Sampling Contexts

“…Most research on spontaneous spoken language in children with ASD has been based on unstructured or loosely-structured interactions with a mother, including play (e.g., Hale & Tager-Flusberg, 2005; Swensen, Kelley, Fein, & Naigles, 2007; Tager-Flusberg & Calkins, 1990; Tager-Flusberg et al, 1990). Such research on spontaneous expressive language in children with ASD has revealed significant deficits in domains of structural language ability.…”

Is Grammar Spared in Autism Spectrum Disorder? Data from Judgments of Verb Argument Structure Overgeneralization Errors

“…For example, Tek et al (2014) used growth curve modelling to identify a high-verbal-skill ASD group who showed a pattern of growth in morphosyntactic complexity (14 grammatical morphemes and wh-question complexity) comparable to that shown by a TD control group (though these authors did also identify a low-verbal-skill ASD group with a flatter trajectory, perhaps because these children also show elements of SLI). Similarly, several researchers have found that, when given standard preferential-looking and elicited production tasks, English speaking children with ASD seem to acquire knowledge of SUBJECT VERB OBJECT word order in a similar way to typically-developing children (Naigles et al 2011;Naigles and Tovar 2012;Swensen et al 2007). Finally, Goodwin et al (2012) showed that when assessed on their comprehension of wh-questions (a particularly complex syntactic structure), children with ASD performed similarly to language-matched (though not age-matched) controls.…”