Top

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Gepubliceerd in:

02-11-2018 | Original Paper

Thinking Ahead: Incremental Language Processing is Associated with Receptive Language Abilities in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Auteurs: Courtney E. Venker, Jan Edwards, Jenny R. Saffran, Susan Ellis Weismer

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders | Uitgave 3/2019

Abstract

In typical development, listeners can use semantic content of verbs to facilitate incremental language processing—a skill that is associated with existing language skills. Studies of children with ASD have not identified an association between incremental language processing in semantically-constraining contexts and language skills, perhaps because participants were adolescents and/or children with strong language skills. This study examined incremental language processing and receptive language in young children with ASD with a range of language skills. Children showed a head start when presented with semantically-constraining verbs (e.g., Read the book) compared to neutral verbs (e.g., Find the book). Children with weaker receptive language showed a smaller head start than children with stronger receptive language skills, suggesting continuity between typical development and ASD.

vorige artikel Mock Juror Perceptions of Credibility and Culpability in an Autistic Defendant

volgende artikel Life After an Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis: A Comparison of Stress and Coping Profiles of African American and Euro-American Caregivers

Although Brock et al. (2008) found no significant relationship between language scores and the isolated effect of verb semantics, it should be noted that in their study, “individuals with poorer language scores spent significantly more time gazing at the (contextually inappropriate) phonological competitor” (p. 899), regardless of autism diagnosis. We do not focus heavily on this finding in the present study because our task and research questions focused on looks to target in the presence of an unrelated distracter.

Because PLS-5 Auditory Comprehension growth scale values provide an absolute measure of language ability and do not control for age, we examined the correlation between receptive language and age. This correlation was non-significant, r = − .128, p = .626.

To simplify internal algorithms, the software used to calculate inter-coder agreement excluded trials that differed in the number of gaze shifts. On average, 77% of trials were retained.

Following Borovsky et al. (2012) we also tested whether age was associated with children’s performance in the experimental task. The model containing age did not provide a significantly better fit to the data than the baseline model (χ²₆ = 7.851, p = .249), and age yielded no significant main effects or interactions (ps > .176).

Allopenna, P. D., Magnuson, J. S., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (1998). Tracking the time course of spoken word recognition using eye movements: Evidence for continuous mapping models. Journal of Memory and Language, 38, 419–439. https://doi.org/10.1006/JMLA.1997.2558.CrossRef

Altmann, G. T., & Kamide, Y. (1999). Incremental interpretation at verbs: Restricting the domain of subsequent reference. Cognition, 73, 247–264.CrossRefPubMed

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.CrossRef

Amso, D., Haas, S., Tenenbaum, E., Markant, J., & Sheinkopf, S. J. (2014). Bottom-up attention orienting in young children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1925-5.PubMedPubMedCentral

Arunachalam, S., & Luyster, R. J. (2016). The integrity of lexical acquisition mechanisms in autism spectrum disorders: A research review. Autism Research, 9, 810–828. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1590.CrossRefPubMed

Bar, M., Bartlett, F. C., Noe, A., & Schank, R. C. (2009). The proactive brain: Memory for predictions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 364, 1235–1243. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0310.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Barr, D. J. (2008). Analyzing ‘visual world’ eyetracking data using multilevel logistic regression. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 457–474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2007.09.002.CrossRef

Bavin, E. L., Kidd, E., Prendergast, L., Baker, E., Dissanayake, C., & Prior, M. (2014). Severity of autism is related to children’s language processing. Autism Research, 7, 687–694. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1410.CrossRefPubMed

Bavin, E. L., Kidd, E., Prendergast, L. A., & Baker, E. K. (2016). Young children with ASD use lexical and referential information during on-line sentence processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00171.CrossRef

Bishop, S., Guthrie, W., Coffing, M., & Lord, C. (2011). Convergent validity of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and the Differential Ability Scales in children with autism spectrum disorders. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 116, 331–343.CrossRefPubMed

Borovsky, A., Elman, J. L., & Fernald, A. (2012). Knowing a lot for one’s age: Vocabulary skill and not age is associated with anticipatory incremental sentence interpretation in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 112, 417–436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.01.005.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Bowler, D. M., Gaigg, S. B., & Gardiner, J. M. (2008). Subjective organisation in the free recall learning of adults with Asperger’s syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(1), 104–113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0366-4.CrossRefPubMed

Brock, J., Norbury, C., Einav, S., & Nation, K. (2008). Do individuals with autism process words in context? Evidence from language-mediated eye-movements. Cognition, 108, 896–904. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.06.007.CrossRefPubMed

Charman, T., Baron-Cohen, S., Swettenham, J., Baird, G., Drew, A., & Cox, A. (2003). Predicting language outcome in infants with autism and pervasive developmental disorder. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 38, 265–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/136820310000104830.CrossRef

Davidson, M. M., & Ellis Weismer, S. (2017). A discrepancy in comprehension and production in early language development in ASD: Is it clinically relevant? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(7), 2163–2175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3135-z.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Dunn, M., Gomes, H., & Sebastian, M. J. (1996). Prototypicality of responses of autistic, language disordered, and normal children in a word fluency task. Child Neuropsychology, 2(2), 99–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049608401355.CrossRef

Eberhardt, M., & Nadig, A. (2016). Reduced sensitivity to context in language comprehension: A characteristic of autism spectrum disorders or of poor structural language ability? Research in Developmental Disabilities, 72, 284–296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2016.01.017.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Eigsti, I.-M., de Marchena, A. B., Schuh, J. M., & Kelley, E. (2011). Language acquisition in autism spectrum disorders: A developmental review. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5, 681–691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2010.09.001.CrossRef

Ellis Weismer, S., Gernsbacher, M. A., Stronach, S., Karasinski, C., Eernisse, E. R., Venker, C. E., & Sindberg, H. (2011). Lexical and grammatical skills in toddlers on the autism spectrum compared to late talking toddlers. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41, 1065–1075. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-010-1134-4.CrossRefPubMed

Ellis Weismer, S., Haebig, E., Edwards, J., Saffran, J., & Venker, C. E. (2016). Lexical processing in toddlers with ASD: Does weak central coherence play a role? Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 3755–3769.CrossRefPubMed

Fernald, A., & Marchman, V. (2012). Individual differences in lexical processing at 18 months predict vocabulary growth in typically developing and late-talking toddlers. Child Development, 83, 203–222.

Fernald, A., Perfors, A., & Marchman, V. A. (2006). Picking up speed in understanding: Speech processing efficiency and vocabulary growth across the 2nd year. Developmental Psychology, 42, 98–116.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Fernald, A., Thorpe, K., & Marchman, V. A. (2010). Blue car, red car: Developing efficiency in online interpretation of adjective–noun phrases. Cognitive Psychology, 60, 190–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COGPSYCH.2009.12.002.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Fernald, A., Zangl, R., Portillo, A. L., & Marchman, V. A. (2008). Looking while listening: Using eye movements to monitor spoken language comprehension by infants and young children. In I. A. Sekerina, E. Fernandez & H. Clahsen (Eds.), Developmental psycholinguistics: On-line methods in children’s language processing (pp. 97–135). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRef

Gastgeb, H. Z., Strauss, M. S., & Minshew, N. J. (2012). Do individuals with autism process categories differently? The effect of typicality and development. Child Development, 77(6), 1717–1729. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00969.x.CrossRef

Gomot, M., & Wicker, B. (2012). A challenging, unpredictable world for people with autism spectrum disorder. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 83, 240–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2011.09.017.CrossRefPubMed

Hahn, N., Snedeker, J., & Rabagliati, H. (2015). Rapid linguistic ambiguity resolution in young children with autism spectrum disorder: Eye tracking evidence for the limits of weak central coherence. Autism Research, 8, 717–726. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1487.CrossRefPubMed

Henderson, L., Powell, A., Gareth Gaskell, M., & Norbury, C. (2014). Learning and consolidation of new spoken words in autism spectrum disorder. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12169.

Huettig, F., & Mani, N. (2016). Is prediction necessary to understand language? Probably not. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2015.1072223.CrossRef

Huettig, F., Rommers, J., & Meyer, A. S. (2011). Using the visual world paradigm to study language processing: A review and critical evaluation. Acta Psychologica, 137(2), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.11.003.CrossRefPubMed

Kamide, Y., Altmann, G. T. M., & Haywood, S. L. (2003). The time-course of prediction in incremental sentence processing: Evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 133–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-596X(03)00023-8.CrossRef

Kidd, E., Stewart, A. J., & Serratrice, L. (2011). Children do not overcome lexical biases where adults do: The role of the referential scene in garden-path recovery. Journal of Child Language, 38(1), 222–234. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000909990316.CrossRefPubMed

Kjelgaard, M. M., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2001). An investigation of language impairment in autism: Implications for genetic subgroups. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16, 287–308.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Kylliäinen, A., Jones, E. J. H., Gomot, M., Warreyn, P., & Falck-Ytter, T. (2014). Practical guidelines for studying young children with autism spectrum disorder in psychophysiological experiments. Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1, 373–386. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-014-0034-5.CrossRef

Lew-Williams, C., & Fernald, A. (2007). Young children learning Spanish make rapid use of grammatical gender in spoken word recognition. Psychological Science, 18, 193–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01871.x.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Lord, C., Rutter, M., DiLavore, P. C., Risi, S., Gotham, K., & Bishop, S. (2012). Autism diagnostic observation schedule, second edition (ADOS-2) manual (Part 1): modules 1–4. Torrence: Western Psychological Services.

Mani, N., & Huettig, F. (2012). Prediction during language processing is a piece of cake—But only for skilled producers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 843–847.PubMed

Marchman, V. A., & Fernald, A. (2008). Speed of word recognition and vocabulary knowledge predict cognitive and language outcomes in later childhood. Developmental Science, 11, F9–F116. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00671.x.Speed.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

McGregor, K. K., & Bean, A. (2012). How children with autism extend new words. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 70–84. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2011/11-0024)b.CrossRefPubMed

Mirman, D. (2014). Growth curve analysis and visualization using R. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Mullen, E. M. (Ed.). (1995). Mullen scales of early learning manual. Minneapolis, MN: AGE Edition.

Naigles, L. R., Kelty, E., Jaffery, R., & Fein, D. (2011). Abstractness and continuity in the syntactic development of young children with autism. Autism Research, 4, 422–437. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.223.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Naigles, L. R., & Tek, S. (2017). ‘Form is easy, meaning is hard’ revisited: (Re)characterizing the strengths and weaknesses of language in children with autism spectrum disorder. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1438.PubMed

Norbury, C. F. (2005). Barking up the wrong tree? Lexical ambiguity resolution in children with language impairments and autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 90, 142–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2004.11.003.CrossRefPubMed

Norbury, C. F. (2016). Eye-tracking as a window on language processing in ASD. In L. Naigles (Ed.), Innovative Investigations of Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder (pp. 13–34). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110409871-002.

Pellicano, E., & Burr, D. (2012). When the world becomes “too real”: A Bayesian explanation of autistic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 504–510. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.08.009.CrossRefPubMed

Potrzeba, E. R., Fein, D., & Naigles, L. (2015). Investigating the shape bias in typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00446.CrossRef

Rutter, M., LeCouteur, A., & Lord, C. (2003). Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Service.

Sasson, N. J., & Elison, J. T. (2012). Eye tracking young children with autism. Journal of Visualized Experiments: JoVE, 61, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.3791/3675.

Sinha, P., Kjelgaard, M. M., Gandhi, T. K., Tsourides, K., Cardinaux, A. L., Pantazis, D., et al. (2014). Autism as a disorder of prediction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 15220–15225. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1416797111.CrossRef

Swingley, D., Pinto, J. P., & Fernald, A. (1999). Continuous processing in word recognition at 24 months. Cognition, 71(2), 73–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00021-9.CrossRefPubMed

Tager-Flusberg, H., & Kasari, C. (2013). Minimally verbal school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder: The neglected end of the spectrum. Autism Research, 6, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1329.CrossRef

Tager-Flusberg, H., Paul, R., & Lord, C. (2005). Language and communication in autism. In F. R. Volkmar, R. Paul, A. Klin & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (3rd ed., pp. 335–364). Hoboken: Wiley.

Tanenhaus, M. K., Magnuson, J. S., Dahan, D., & Chambers, C. (2000). Eye movements and lexical access in spoken-language comprehension: Evaluating a linking hypothesis between fixations and linguistic processing. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 557–580. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026464108329.CrossRefPubMed

Tek, S., Jaffery, G., Fein, D., & Naigles, L. R. (2008). Do children with autism spectrum disorders show a shape bias in word learning? Autism Research, 1, 208–222. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.38.Do.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Tovar, A. T., Fein, D., & Naigles, L. R. (2014). Grammatical aspect is a strength in the language comprehension of young children with autism. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58, 301–310.CrossRef

Van de Cruys, S., Evers, K., Van der Hallen, R., Van Eylen, L., Boets, B., De-Wit, L., & Wagemans, J. (2014). Precise minds in uncertain worlds: Predictive coding in autism. Psychological Review, 121, 649–675. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037665.CrossRefPubMed

Venker, C. E., Eernisse, E. R., Saffran, J. R., & Weismer, E. S. (2013). Individual differences in the real-time comprehension of children with ASD. Autism Research, 6(5), 417–432. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1304.CrossRefPubMed

Venker, C. E., & Kover, S. T. (2015). An open conversation on using eye-gaze methods in studies of neurodevelopmental disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58, 1719–1732. https://doi.org/10.1044/2015_JSLHR-L-14-0304.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Volden, J., Smith, I. M., Szatmari, P., Bryson, S., Fombonne, E., Mirenda, P., et al. (2011). Using the preschool language scale, fourth edition to characterize language in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders, 20, 200–209. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360(2011/10-0035)extreme.

Weisleder, A., & Fernald, A. (2013). Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science, 24, 2143–2152. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613488145.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Ylinen, S., Bosseler, A., Junttila, K., & Huotilainen, M. (2017). Predictive coding accelerates word recognition and learning in the early stages of language development. Developmental Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12472.PubMed

Zimmerman, I. L., Steiner, V. G., & Pond, R. E. (2011). Preschool language scales, Fifth Edition. San Antonio: The Psychological Corporation.

Titel: Thinking Ahead: Incremental Language Processing is Associated with Receptive Language Abilities in Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Auteurs: Courtney E. Venker
Jan Edwards
Jenny R. Saffran
Susan Ellis Weismer
Publicatiedatum: 02-11-2018
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders / Uitgave 3/2019
Print ISSN: 0162-3257
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-3432
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3778-4

Andere artikelen Uitgave 3/2019

Effects of Delay, Question Type, and Socioemotional Support on Episodic Memory Retrieval by Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Open Access
Original Paper

Brief Report: Descriptive Analysis of Law Enforcement Officers’ Experiences with and Knowledge of Autism

Brief Report

Extending the Parent-Delivered Early Start Denver Model to Young Children with Fragile X Syndrome

Original Paper

Designing a Serious Game for Youth with ASD: Perspectives from End-Users and Professionals

Original Paper

The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Test in Autism-Spectrum Disorders Comparison with Healthy Controls: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Original Paper

Autistic-Like Traits in Pena–Shokeir Syndrome

Letter to the Editor