School of Psychology, Keynes College, University of Kent, UK.
Autism Res. 2018 Oct;11(10):1366-1375. doi: 10.1002/aur.2007. Epub 2018 Sep 13.
One feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a deficit in verbal reference production, that is, providing an appropriate amount of verbal information for the listener to refer to things, people, and events. However, very few studies have manipulated whether individuals with ASD can take a speaker's perspective to interpret verbal reference. A critical limitation of all interpretation studies is that comprehension of another's verbal reference required the participant to represent only the other's visual perspective. Yet, many everyday interpretations of verbal reference require knowledge of social perspective (i.e., a consideration of which experiences one has shared with which interlocutor). We investigated whether 22 5;0-7;11-year-old children with ASD and 22 well-matched typically developing (TD) children used social perspective to comprehend (Study 1) and produce (Study 2) verbal reference. Social perspective-taking was manipulated by having children collaboratively complete activities with one of two interlocutors such that for a given activity, one interlocutor was Knowledgeable and one was Naïve. Study 1 found no between-group differences for the interpretation of ambiguous references based on social perspective. In Study 2, when producing referring terms, the ASD group made modifications based on listener needs, but this effect was significantly stronger in the TD group. Overall, the findings suggest that high-functioning children with ASD know with which interlocutor they have previously shared a given experience and can take this information into account to steer verbal reference. Nonetheless, they show clear performance limitations in this regard relative to well-matched controls. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1366-1375. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: No one had studied if young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could take into account previous collaboration with particular conversation partners to drive how well they communicate with others. In both their language understanding and spoken language, we found that five to 7-year-olds with ASD were able to consider what they had previously shared with the conversation partner. However, they were impaired when compared to typically developing children in the degree to which they tailored their spoken language for a specific listener.
自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的一个特征是言语参照产生缺陷,即提供给听者适当数量的言语信息,以便听者能够指称事物、人和事件。然而,很少有研究操纵 ASD 个体是否能够从说话者的角度来解释言语参照。所有解释研究的一个关键局限性是,参与者理解另一个人的言语参照需要代表另一个人的视觉角度。然而,许多日常言语参照的解释都需要社会角度的知识(即,考虑一个人与哪个对话者共享了哪些经验)。我们调查了 22 名 5 岁零 7 个月至 11 岁的自闭症儿童和 22 名匹配良好的典型发育(TD)儿童是否使用社会角度来理解(研究 1)和产生(研究 2)言语参照。社会角度的操纵是通过让儿童与两个对话者中的一个合作完成活动来实现的,以至于对于给定的活动,一个对话者是知情的,另一个是无知的。研究 1 发现,基于社会角度,在解释模棱两可的参照时,两组之间没有差异。在研究 2 中,当产生指称术语时,ASD 组根据听者的需求进行了修改,但 TD 组的效果明显更强。总体而言,这些发现表明,高功能自闭症儿童知道他们之前与哪个对话者共享了特定的经验,并可以将这些信息纳入考虑,以引导言语参照。尽管如此,与匹配的对照组相比,他们在这方面表现出明显的局限性。自闭症研究 2018, 11: 1366-1375。©2018 自闭症国际研究协会,威利父子出版公司。
没有人研究过自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的幼儿是否能够考虑到与特定对话伙伴的先前合作,以提高他们与他人沟通的能力。在语言理解和口语方面,我们发现,5 岁至 7 岁的自闭症儿童能够考虑他们之前与对话伙伴分享的内容。然而,与典型发育的儿童相比,他们在为特定的听者调整口语方面存在障碍。