Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.

Successful word learning depends on the integration of phonological and semantic information with social cues provided by interlocutors. How then, do children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) learn new words when social impairments pervade? We recorded the eye-movements of verbally-able childre...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Norbury, C, Griffiths, H, Nation, K
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2010
_version_ 1826278337654292480
author Norbury, C
Griffiths, H
Nation, K
author_facet Norbury, C
Griffiths, H
Nation, K
author_sort Norbury, C
collection OXFORD
description Successful word learning depends on the integration of phonological and semantic information with social cues provided by interlocutors. How then, do children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) learn new words when social impairments pervade? We recorded the eye-movements of verbally-able children with ASD and their typical peers while completing a word learning task in a social context. We assessed learning of semantic and phonological features immediately after learning and again four weeks later. Eye-movement data revealed that both groups could follow social cues, but that typically developing children were more sensitive to the social informativeness of gaze cues. In contrast, children with ASD were more successful than peers at mapping phonological forms to novel referents; however, this advantage was not maintained over time. Typical children showed clear consolidation of learning both semantic and phonological information, children with ASD did not. These results provide unique evidence of qualitative differences in word learning and consolidation and elucidate the different mechanisms underlying the unusual nature of autistic language.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T23:42:26Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:6fc7eee3-d072-43e5-a100-8a4a8fa0051a
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-06T23:42:26Z
publishDate 2010
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:6fc7eee3-d072-43e5-a100-8a4a8fa0051a2022-03-26T19:32:51ZSound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:6fc7eee3-d072-43e5-a100-8a4a8fa0051aEnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2010Norbury, CGriffiths, HNation, KSuccessful word learning depends on the integration of phonological and semantic information with social cues provided by interlocutors. How then, do children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) learn new words when social impairments pervade? We recorded the eye-movements of verbally-able children with ASD and their typical peers while completing a word learning task in a social context. We assessed learning of semantic and phonological features immediately after learning and again four weeks later. Eye-movement data revealed that both groups could follow social cues, but that typically developing children were more sensitive to the social informativeness of gaze cues. In contrast, children with ASD were more successful than peers at mapping phonological forms to novel referents; however, this advantage was not maintained over time. Typical children showed clear consolidation of learning both semantic and phonological information, children with ASD did not. These results provide unique evidence of qualitative differences in word learning and consolidation and elucidate the different mechanisms underlying the unusual nature of autistic language.
spellingShingle Norbury, C
Griffiths, H
Nation, K
Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.
title Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.
title_full Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.
title_fullStr Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.
title_full_unstemmed Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.
title_short Sound before meaning: word learning in autistic disorders.
title_sort sound before meaning word learning in autistic disorders
work_keys_str_mv AT norburyc soundbeforemeaningwordlearninginautisticdisorders
AT griffithsh soundbeforemeaningwordlearninginautisticdisorders
AT nationk soundbeforemeaningwordlearninginautisticdisorders