Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 Nov;54(11):4288-4301. doi: 10.1007/s10803-023-06111-6. Epub 2023 Aug 29.
The present study aimed to examine whether Mandarin-speaking children on the autism spectrum showed differences in comprehending spatial demonstratives ("this" and "that", and "here" and "there"), as compared to typically developing (TD) children. Another aim of this study was to investigate the roles of theory of mind (ToM) and executive functions (EF) in the comprehension of spatial demonstratives. Twenty-seven autistic children (mean age 6.86) and 27 receptive-vocabulary-matched TD children (mean age 5.82) were recruited. Demonstrative comprehension was assessed based on participants' ability to place objects in certain locations according to experimenters' instructions which involved these demonstratives in three different conditions (same-, opposite-, and spectator-perspective conditions). Four false-belief tasks were administered to measure ToM, and the word-span task and the dimensional change card sort task were used to measure two subcomponents of EF - working memory and mental flexibility - respectively. Children on the autism spectrum were found to score below TD children in the comprehension of spatial demonstratives. In addition, the results showed that ToM and working memory were conducive to the correct interpretation of spatial demonstratives. The two cognitive abilities mutually influenced their respective roles in spatial demonstrative comprehension in the three different conditions. The findings suggest that the comprehension of spatial demonstratives comprehension is an area of need in Mandarin-speaking children on the autism spectrum, and it might be linked to their differences in cognitive abilities.
本研究旨在考察普通话谱系障碍儿童在理解空间指示词（“这”和“那”，“这里”和“那里”）方面是否与典型发展儿童存在差异。本研究的另一个目的是探究心理理论（ToM）和执行功能（EF）在空间指示词理解中的作用。研究招募了 27 名自闭症儿童（平均年龄 6.86 岁）和 27 名接受性词汇匹配的典型发展儿童（平均年龄 5.82 岁）。指示词理解是根据参与者根据实验者的指令将物体放置在特定位置的能力来评估的，这些指令涉及到三种不同的条件（相同、相反和旁观者视角条件）。进行了四项错误信念任务来测量心理理论，使用单词跨度任务和维度变化卡片分类任务分别测量执行功能的两个子成分——工作记忆和心理灵活性。自闭症谱系障碍儿童在空间指示词理解方面的得分低于典型发展儿童。此外，结果表明心理理论和工作记忆有助于正确解释空间指示词。这两种认知能力相互影响它们在三种不同条件下各自在空间指示词理解中的作用。研究结果表明，空间指示词理解是普通话谱系障碍儿童的一个需要关注的领域，这可能与他们认知能力的差异有关。
