Answering contextually demanding questions: pragmatic errors produced by children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism.
This study examined irrelevant/incorrect answers produced by children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism (7-9-year-olds and 10-12-year-olds) and normally developing children (7-9-year-olds). The errors produced were divided into three types: in Type 1, the child answered the original question incorrectly, in Type 2, the child gave a correct answer, but when asked a follow-up question, he/she explained the answer incorrectly, and in Type 3, the child first gave a correct answer or explanation, but continued answering, which ultimately led to an irrelevant answer. Analyses of Type 1 and 2 errors indicated that all the children tried to utilize contextual information, albeit incorrectly. Analyses of Type 3 errors showed that topic drifts were almost non-existent in the control group, but common in the clinical group, suggesting that these children had difficulties in stopping processing after deriving a relevant answer.


OBJECTIVE
The reader becomes aware of the different instances which may lead to the irrelevance of answers and get knowledge about features of answers of children with AS/HFA.
Loukusa
Soile
S
Department of Finnish, Information Studies and Logopedics, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 1000, Oulu, FIN-90014, Finland. soile.loukusa@oulu.fi
Leinonen
Eeva
E
Jussila
Katja
K
Mattila
Marja-Leena
ML
Ryder
Nuala
N
Ebeling
Hanna
H
Moilanen
Irma
I
D001076:Aptitude; D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D013067:Speech Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior