Monash University, Clayton,Victoria, Australia.
Autism. 2011 May;15(3):307-25. doi: 10.1177/1362361310386501. Epub 2011 Mar 1.
The presence or absence of clinically delayed language development prior to 3 years of age is a key, but contentious, clinical feature distinguishing autism from Asperger's disorder. The aim of this study was to examine language processing in children with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's disorder (AD) using a task which taps lexical processing, a core language ability. Eleven individuals with HFA, 11 with AD and 11 typically developing (TD) individuals completed a masked priming task, a psycholinguistic paradigm that directly examines lexical processes. Within-group analyses revealed the AD and TD groups had intact lexical processing systems and orthographic processing of the written word. The outcomes for the HFA group were ambiguous, suggesting that their lexical processing system is either delayed or is structurally different. This suggests that fundamental differences in lexical processing exist between HFA and AD and remain evident later in development.
3 岁以前是否存在临床语言发育迟缓是自闭症与阿斯伯格综合征相区别的一个关键特征，但也颇具争议。本研究旨在使用一种能够探测词汇处理能力（语言的核心能力）的任务来检测高功能自闭症（HFA）和阿斯伯格综合征（AD）儿童的语言处理能力。11 名 HFA 患者、11 名 AD 患者和 11 名正常发育（TD）个体完成了掩蔽启动任务，这是一种直接检测词汇过程的心理语言学范式。组内分析显示，AD 组和 TD 组具有完整的词汇处理系统和书面单词的正字法加工能力。HFA 组的结果则模棱两可，这表明他们的词汇处理系统要么延迟，要么结构不同。这表明 HFA 和 AD 之间在词汇处理方面存在根本差异，而且这种差异在发育后期仍然明显。
