Biller Maysoon F, Yeager Kayleigh A
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Central Arkansas, Conway.
Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2022 Oct 6;53(4):1074-1087. doi: 10.1044/2022_LSHSS-21-00184. Epub 2022 Aug 10.
This study examines two components of lexical acquisition and phonological development that occur during the first 50-word stage of language development in neurotypical (NT) children. One component is how children learn words based on their existing speech sound inventories (i.e., in-phonology and out-of-phonology word learning). The other component is the relationship between the children's number of words and the number of phonemes in their speech sound inventories. The goal of this study is to determine if the same two components occur in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) who are older than their NT peers but are in the same stage of lexical development.
This study involved 20 minimally verbal children with ASDs, ages 28-72 months, who produced five to 50 spoken words. The children's spoken words were obtained from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. The speech sound inventories were obtained from the utterances produced during assessment/play sessions with the children. The children's spoken words from the Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) were categorized as either in-phonology or out-of-phonology based on whether the words began with a phoneme in the child's existing speech sound inventory. Additionally, the children's number of spoken words on the CDI was compared to the number of phonemes in their speech sound inventories.
The children in this study produced in-phonology words more often than out-of-phonology words ( = -3.922; < .001). Moreover, there was a moderate positive correlation between the children's number of spoken words and the number of phonemes in their speech sound inventories ( = .534, = .019).
The relationship between lexical acquisition and phonological development appears to exist for the children in this study, who are in the first 50-word stage of development. Clinical implications for increasing the expressive language of children with ASDs were discussed.
本研究考察了典型发育（NT）儿童在语言发展的前50词阶段出现的词汇习得和语音发展的两个组成部分。一个组成部分是儿童如何根据其现有的语音清单来学习单词（即语音内和语音外单词学习）。另一个组成部分是儿童的单词数量与其语音清单中音素数量之间的关系。本研究的目的是确定在词汇发展处于同一阶段但年龄比NT同龄人更大的自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童中是否也存在相同的两个组成部分。
本研究纳入了20名轻度语言能力的ASD儿童，年龄在28 - 72个月之间，能说出5至50个口语单词。儿童的口语单词来自麦克阿瑟-贝茨交流发展量表。语音清单来自与儿童进行评估/游戏环节时所产生的话语。根据交流发展量表（CDI）中儿童说出的单词是否以其现有语音清单中的音素开头，将这些单词分类为语音内或语音外。此外，还将儿童在CDI上的口语单词数量与其语音清单中的音素数量进行了比较。
本研究中的儿童产生语音内单词的频率高于语音外单词（ = -3.922； <.001）。此外，儿童的口语单词数量与其语音清单中的音素数量之间存在中等程度的正相关（ = 0.534， = 0.019）。
本研究中处于发展前50词阶段的儿童似乎存在词汇习得与语音发展之间的关系。讨论了对增加ASD儿童表达性语言的临床意义。
