Whitehouse Andrew J O, Barry Johanna G, Bishop Dorothy V M
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford Study of Children's Communication Impairments, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, United Kingdom.
J Commun Disord. 2008 Jul-Aug;41(4):319-36. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2008.01.002. Epub 2008 Jan 20.
Some children with autism demonstrate poor nonword repetition--a deficit considered to be a psycholinguistic marker of specific language impairment (SLI). The present study examined whether there is an SLI subtype among children with autism. We compared the language abilities of children with SLI (n=34, M age=11;10 S.D.=2;3), and children with autism with (Apoor, n=18, M age=10;11 S.D.=3;1) and without (Aapp, n=16, M age=10;8 S.D.=2;7) structural language difficulties. Participants were administered battery of standardized language and memory tests. Although there were some similarities in the language profile of the SLI and Apoor groups, the two groups differed on the tests of oromotor ability and verbal short-term memory and showed a different pattern of errors on the nonword repetition task. These findings providing evidence against the idea of an SLI subtype in autism. Further analyses suggested that the nonword repetition deficits experienced by some children with autism may arise when there is substantial impairment in multiple autistic domains.
Readers will be introduced to (a) the current state of behavioral, cognitive and genetic research that has investigated the relation between SLI and autism, and (b) three hypotheses of why there exists similarity in the language characteristics of children with SLI and autism. Readers will then be taken through a detailed comparison of the language and memory abilities of group of children with each diagnosis. A theoretical model that seeks to explain the relation between these two disorders will be discussed.
一些患有自闭症的儿童在非词重复方面表现较差——这种缺陷被认为是特定语言障碍（SLI）的心理语言学标志。本研究调查了自闭症儿童中是否存在SLI亚型。我们比较了患有SLI的儿童（n = 34，平均年龄 = 11岁10个月，标准差 = 2岁3个月）、有（Apoor组，n = 18，平均年龄 = 10岁11个月，标准差 = 3岁1个月）和没有（Aapp组，n = 16，平均年龄 = 10岁8个月，标准差 = 2岁7个月）结构性语言困难的自闭症儿童的语言能力。参与者接受了一系列标准化语言和记忆测试。尽管SLI组和Apoor组在语言概况上有一些相似之处，但两组在口颜面运动能力和言语短期记忆测试上存在差异，并且在非词重复任务上表现出不同的错误模式。这些发现为反对自闭症中存在SLI亚型的观点提供了证据。进一步分析表明，一些自闭症儿童经历的非词重复缺陷可能在多个自闭症领域存在严重损害时出现。
读者将了解到（a）研究SLI与自闭症之间关系的行为、认知和基因研究的现状，以及（b）关于为什么SLI儿童和自闭症儿童的语言特征存在相似性的三种假设。然后，读者将详细比较每组诊断儿童的语言和记忆能力。将讨论一个试图解释这两种障碍之间关系的理论模型。
