Carr E G, Pridal C, Dores P A
J Exp Child Psychol. 1984 Jun;37(3):587-97. doi: 10.1016/0022-0965(84)90078-x.
Autistic children have severe problems in acquiring language. For this reason, special techniques have been developed to teach them speech and sign language. It is not known, however, whether these children will profit more from speech or sign training. The research literature implies that verbal imitative ability may predict language learning characteristics particularly in the speech modality. In view of this possibility, two groups of autistic children--good versus poor verbal imitators--were studied within the context of a receptive label acquisition task. Good imitators acquired receptive speech whereas poor imitators typically did not. Both groups acquired receptive signs. The results were discussed in terms of the role that imitative ability may play with respect to language acquisition in this population.
自闭症儿童在语言习得方面存在严重问题。因此，人们开发了特殊技术来教他们说话和手语。然而，尚不清楚这些孩子从言语训练还是手语训练中获益更多。研究文献表明，言语模仿能力可能尤其在言语模式中预测语言学习特征。鉴于这种可能性，在接受性标签获取任务的背景下，对两组自闭症儿童——言语模仿能力强的与言语模仿能力差的——进行了研究。模仿能力强的儿童获得了接受性言语，而模仿能力差的儿童通常没有。两组儿童都获得了接受性手语。根据模仿能力在这一群体语言习得中可能发挥的作用对结果进行了讨论。
