Center for Autism Research Excellence, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2024 Nov-Dec;59(6):2397-2411. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.13089. Epub 2024 Jul 11.
Parental input plays a central role in typical language acquisition and development. In autism spectrum disorder (ASD), characterized by social communicative and language difficulties, parental input presents an important avenue for investigation as a target for intervention. A rich body of literature has identified which aspects of grammatical complexity and lexical diversity are most associated with child language ability in both typical development and autism. Yet, the majority of these studies are conducted with English-speaking children, thus potentially overlooking nuances in parental input derived from cross-linguistic variation.
To examine the differences in verbal parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with ASD. To examine whether aspects of verbal parental input found to be concurrent predictors of English-speaking children's expressive language ability are also predictors of the expressive language of Bulgarian-speaking children with ASD.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: We compared parental input to Bulgarian-speaking (N = 37; 2;7-9;10 years) and English-speaking (N = 37; 1;8-4;9 years) children with ASD matched on expressive language. Parent-child interactions were collected during free play with developmentally appropriate toys. These interactions were transcribed, and key measures of parental input were extracted.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: English-speaking parents produced more word tokens and word types than Bulgarian-speaking parents. However, Bulgarian parents produced more verbs in relation to nouns and used more statements and exclamations but asked fewer questions than English-speaking parents. In addition, child age and parents' use of questions were significant concurrent predictors of child expressive vocabulary.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: This is one of the first studies to conduct a cross-linguistic comparison of parental input in ASD. The differences found emphasize the need to further study parental input to Bulgarian children and adapt naturalistic parent-mediated interventions to the local language and its specific characteristics.
What is already known on the subject A rich body of literature has identified the specific aspects of grammatical complexity, lexical diversity, and question-asking that are concurrently and longitudinally associated with the language ability of children with typical development and of children with ASD. Yet, the majority of these studies are conducted with English-speaking children. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge The present study finds that there are specific differences in verbal parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with autism in terms of lexical composition and question-asking. Bulgarian parents used more verbs than nouns, and the opposite pattern was found for English-speaking parents. In addition, Bulgarian parents asked fewer questions but used more statements and exclamations. Nevertheless, parental question use was significantly correlated with children's language ability across both groups, suggesting that question-asking should be further examined as a potential target for parent-mediated language interventions for Bulgarian children with autism. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Most language and social communication interventions for autism are designed and piloted with English-speaking children. These interventions are often simply translated and used in different countries, with different populations and in different contexts. However, considering that one of the defining characteristics of autism is language difficulty, more studies should examine (1) how these language difficulties manifest in languages other than English, and (2) what characterizes verbal parental input in these other contexts. Such research investigations should inform future language and social communication interventions. The present study emphasizes the cross-linguistic differences between Bulgarian- and English-speaking parents' verbal input to their children with autism.
父母的输入在典型的语言习得和发展中起着核心作用。在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）中，语言交流和社交困难是其特征，父母的输入是一个重要的研究途径，也是干预的目标。大量文献已经确定了语法复杂性和词汇多样性的哪些方面与典型发展和自闭症儿童的语言能力最相关。然而，这些研究大多是针对英语儿童进行的，因此可能忽略了来自语言差异的父母输入的细微差别。
检查保加利亚语和英语自闭症儿童的言语父母输入的差异。检查在英语儿童中被发现是表达性语言能力的同期预测因素的言语父母输入的哪些方面也能预测保加利亚语自闭症儿童的表达性语言。
我们比较了具有匹配表达性语言的保加利亚语（N=37；2；7-9；10 岁）和英语（N=37；1；8-4；9 岁）自闭症儿童的父母输入。在使用适合发展的玩具进行自由游戏期间收集了亲子互动。这些互动被转录，并提取了关键的父母输入测量指标。
英语父母比保加利亚父母产生了更多的单词和单词类型。然而，保加利亚父母使用的动词相对于名词更多，并且比英语父母使用更多的陈述和感叹句，而提问较少。此外，儿童年龄和父母提问是儿童表达词汇量的重要同期预测因素。
这是第一个在自闭症中进行跨语言比较父母输入的研究之一。所发现的差异强调需要进一步研究保加利亚儿童的父母输入，并根据当地语言及其特定特点调整自然主义的家长介导的干预措施。
本研究发现，在保加利亚语和英语自闭症儿童的言语父母输入方面，词汇组成和提问方面存在特定差异。保加利亚父母使用的动词多于名词，而英语父母则相反。此外，保加利亚父母提问较少，但使用更多的陈述和感叹句。然而，父母的提问与两组儿童的语言能力显著相关，这表明提问应该作为自闭症儿童家长介导的语言干预的潜在目标进一步研究。
大多数自闭症的语言和社交沟通干预措施都是为英语儿童设计和试点的。这些干预措施通常只是简单地翻译并在不同的国家使用，针对不同的人群和不同的环境。然而，考虑到自闭症的一个定义特征是语言困难，应该有更多的研究（1）研究这些语言困难在英语以外的语言中是如何表现的，以及（2）在这些其他环境中，言语父母输入的特点是什么。这些研究调查应该为未来的语言和社交沟通干预措施提供信息。本研究强调了保加利亚语和英语自闭症儿童父母对其子女言语输入的跨语言差异。
