Fyffe C, Prior M
Br J Psychol. 1978 Aug;69(3):393-402. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1978.tb01672.x.
In a replication and extension of earlier studies by Hermelin & O'Connor, language recoding abilities in autistic, retarded and normal children matched for mental age and digit span, were compared in a verbal recall task. Random word lists, sentences, and anomalous sentences, eight or 12 items in length (for high and low memory span subgroups) were presented and the number of words recalled from each type of input was scored. All low span children recalled sentences better than random lists with normal children superior to retarded and autistic children and the latter group poorer than the retarded group. Autistic children showed a recency effect with both types of input. There were no group differences amongst high span children and sentences were again better recalled than random lists. In Expt II sentences were better recalled than anomalous sentences, with autistic and retarded children equivalent in performance and poorer than normal children. Although low span autistic children were clearly deficient in recall of sentence material when compared with the two control groups, the effect of conditions showed that they were able to use structure to improve recall. Since high span autistic children did not perform differently from controls it is suggested that results from this kind of study may not be generalizable, and that claims for a specific coding deficit in autistic children need further substantiation.
在对赫梅林和奥康纳早期研究的复制与拓展中，对心理年龄和数字广度相匹配的自闭症儿童、智力迟钝儿童和正常儿童的语言重新编码能力，在一项言语回忆任务中进行了比较。呈现了长度为8个或12个项目（针对高记忆广度和低记忆广度亚组）的随机单词列表、句子和异常句子，并对从每种输入类型中回忆出的单词数量进行了计分。所有低广度儿童回忆句子的表现都优于随机列表，正常儿童优于智力迟钝儿童和自闭症儿童，而自闭症儿童组比智力迟钝儿童组更差。自闭症儿童在两种输入类型中都表现出近因效应。高广度儿童之间没有组间差异，句子的回忆效果再次优于随机列表。在实验二中，句子的回忆效果优于异常句子，自闭症儿童和智力迟钝儿童的表现相当，且比正常儿童差。尽管与两个对照组相比，低广度自闭症儿童在句子材料的回忆方面明显不足，但条件效应表明他们能够利用结构来提高回忆。由于高广度自闭症儿童的表现与对照组没有差异，因此有人认为这类研究的结果可能无法推广，并且关于自闭症儿童存在特定编码缺陷的说法需要进一步证实。
