Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Emotion-related and abstract concepts in autistic people: Evidence from the British Picture Vocabulary Scale

  • Published:
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Autistic and nonautistic retarded adolescents and young adults, individually matched for chronological age and performance on the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS; Dunn, Dunn, & Whetton, 1982), were compared on those items of the BPVS that independent raters judged (a) emotion-related and (b) highly abstract. Compared to control subjects, autistic individuals scored lower on emotion-related vis-à-vis emotion-unrelated items, an effect that could not be attributed to the “social content” of the items. However, autistic and nonautistic subjects achieved similar scores when responding to highly abstract vis-à-vis “concrete” words of the BPVS. The findings suggest that autistic individuals have specific impairments in grasping emotion-related concepts. They also suggest the need for further study of autistic and nonautistic retarded subjects' difficulties in abstracting. The results have a bearing on the interpretation of the BPVS and on the use of this test as a matching procedure.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Atlas, J. A. (1986). Responses of emotionally disturbed children to PPVT-R items of human versus nonhuman content: Extension of Shipe, Cromwell and Dunn.Perceptual and Motor Skills, 63, 863–866.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Badt, M. I. (1958). Levels of abstraction in vocabulary definitions of mentally retarded school children.American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 63, 241–246.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baroff, G. S. (1959). WISC patterning in endogenous mental deficiency.American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 64, 482–485.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1986). Mechanical, behavioural and Intentional understanding of picture stories in autistic children.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 4, 113–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burland, R., & Carroll, V. M. (1971). The misuse of a test of specific ability as an estimate of general ability.Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 24, 317–318.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1981).Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised Manual. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunn, L. M., Dunn, L. M., & Whetton, C. (1982).British Picture Vocabulary Scale. Windsor, England: NFER-Nelson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fyffe, C., & Prior, M. (1978). Evidence for language recoding in autistic, retarded and normal children: A re-examination.British Journal of Psychology, 69, 393–402.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Griffith, B. C., & Spitz, H. H. (1958). Some relationships between abstraction and word meanings in retarded adolescents.American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 63, 247–251.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hermelin, B., & O'Connor, N. (1967). Remembering of words by psychotic and subnormal children.British Journal of Psychology, 58, 213–218.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hermelin, B., & O'Connor, N. (1970).Psychological experiments with autistic children. Oxford, England: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P. (1983). The autistic child's recognition of age-related features of people, animals and things.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1, 343–352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P. (1986a). The autistic child's appraisal of expressions of emotion.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 321–342.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P. (1986b). The autistic child's appraisal of expressions of emotion: A further study.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 671–680.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P. (1987). The autistic child's recognition of age-and sex-related characteristics of people.Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 17, 63–79.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P. (1989). Beyond cognition: A theory of autism. In G. Dawson (Ed.),Autism: New perspectives on diagnosis, nature and treatment (pp. 22–48). New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P., Ouston, J., & Lee, A. (1988a). What's in a face? The case of autism.British Journal of Psychology, 79, 441–453.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P., Ouston, J., & Lee, A. (1988b). Emotion recognition in autism: Coordinating faces and voices.Psychological Medicine, 18, 911–923.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P., Ouston, J., & Lee, A. (1989a). Recognition of emotion by mentally retarded adolescents and young adults.American Journal on Mental Retardation, 93, 434–443.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hobson, R. P., Ouston, J., & Lee, A. (1989b). Naming emotion in faces and voices: Abilities and disabilities in autism and mental retardation.British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7, 237–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jennings, W. B. (1973).A study of the preference for affective cues in autistic children. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Memphis State University, TN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact.Nervous Child, 2, 217–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lockyer, L., & Rutter, M. (1970). A five- to fifteen-year follow-up study of infantile psychosis: IV. Patterns of cognitive ability.British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 9, 152–163.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Luria, A. R. (ed.). (1963).The mentally retarded child. (W. P. Robinson, Trans.). Oxford, England: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paivio, A., Yuille, J. C., & Madigan, S. A. (1968). Concreteness, imagery and meaningfulness values for 925 nouns.Journal of Experimental Psychology Monograph Supplement, 76, 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prior, M. R. (1977). Psycholinguistic disabilities of autistic and retarded children.Journal of Mental Deficiency Research, 21, 37–45.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ricks, D. M., & Wing, L. (1975). Language, communication, and the use of symbols in normal and autistic children.Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia, 5, 191–221.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rutter, M. (1974). The development of infantile autism.Psychological Medicine, 4, 147–163.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Scheerer, M., Rothmann, E., & Goldstein, K. (1945). A case of “idiot savant”: An experimental study of personality organization.Psychological Monographs, 58, (4, Whole No. 269), 1–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shipe, D., Cromwell, R. L., & Dunn, L. M. (1966). Responses of emotionally disturbed and nondisturbed retardates to PPVT items of human versus nonhuman content.Journal of Consulting Psychology, 30, 439–443.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Spitz, H. H. (1982). Intellectual extremes, mental age, and the nature of human intelligence.Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 28, 167–192.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spreen, O., & Schulz, R. W. (1966). Parameters of abstraction, meaningfulness, and pronunciability for 329 nouns.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5, 459–468.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tager-Flusberg, H. (1985a). The conceptual basis for referential word meaning in children with autism.Child Development, 56, 1167–1178.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tager-Flusberg, H. (1985b). Basic level and superordinate level categorization by autistic, mentally retarded, and normal children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 40, 450–469.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tsai, L. Y., & Beisler, J. M. (1984). Research in infantile autism: A methodological problem in using language comprehension as the basis for selecting matched controls.Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 23, 700–703.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tubbs, V. K. (1966). Types of linguistic disability in psychotic children.Journal of Mental Deficiency Research, 10, 230–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tymchuk, A. J., Simmons, J. Q., & Neafsey, S. (1977). Intellectual characteristics of adolescent childhood psychotics with high verbal ability.Journal of Mental Deficiency Research, 21, 133–138.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Weeks, S. J., & Hobson, R. P. (1987). The salience of facial expression for autistic children.Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 28, 137–152.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wetherby, A. M., Koegel, R. L., & Mendel, M. (1981). Central auditory nervous system dysfunction in echolalic autistic individuals.Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 24, 420–429.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wheldall, K., & Jeffree, D. (1974). Criticisms regarding the use of the E.P.V.T. in subnormality research.British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 9, 140–143.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, SE5 8AF, London, England

    R. Peter Hobson & Anthony Lee

Authors
  1. R. Peter Hobson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Anthony Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

This study was funded by a Project Grant from the Medical Research Council, whilst Dr. Hobson was an MRC Senior Fellow. We thank Janet Ouston for her major part in the original BPVS testing of subjects, Beate Hermelin for her persistent encouragement and lively criticism, and Cathy Lord for her most helpful suggestions. We are very grateful to the individuals who took part in the study, and to the staff who so kindly helped us at the Helen Allison School and Tivoli House, Gravesend, and the Cherry Orchard Centre, Croydon.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hobson, R.P., Lee, A. Emotion-related and abstract concepts in autistic people: Evidence from the British Picture Vocabulary Scale. J Autism Dev Disord 19, 601–623 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02212860

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02212860

Keywords

Search

Navigation