Brief report: are children with autism proficient word learners?
Many approaches to word learning argue for the importance of joint attention and other social-pragmatic abilities. This study explored word learning in children with autism (CWA), by examining it in ostensive and non-ostensive contexts, tested through both comprehension and elicited production. Novel nouns were taught to 17 CWA and 13 children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD) using an adapted version of Tomasello and Barton's (Developmental Psychology, 30: 639-650, 1994) search paradigm. In elicited production for words learnt within an ostensive context, CWA performed at a significantly higher level than MLD children. This is contrary to prior findings and suggests that word learning abilities in CWA have been underestimated.
Franken
Tessa E
TE
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. t.franken@lancaster.ac.uk
Lewis
Charlie
C
Malone
Stephanie A
SA
D001288:Attention; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D012919:Social Behavior; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary
Lang Cogn Process. 2001 Apr 1;16(2-3):287-308
16703115
Cognition. 1993 Aug;48(2):101-19
8243028
J Child Lang. 1993 Jun;20(2):395-418
8376476
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1986 Sep;27(5):657-69
3771682
J Autism Dev Disord. 1996 Apr;26(2):169-72
8744479
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2003 Jul-Sep;38(3):265-85
12851079
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1996 Sep;37(6):673-86
8894948
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1978 Apr;19(2):161-6
670335
J Autism Child Schizophr. 1976 Dec;6(4):303-16
1036737
Cognition. 2005 Aug;97(1):B13-23
15925356
Child Dev. 2007 Jul-Aug;78(4):1265-87
17650138
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1986 Sep;27(5):647-55
3771681
J Autism Dev Disord. 2005 Aug;35(4):519-24
16134037
J Autism Dev Disord. 2005 Dec;35(6):747-56
16267641
J Autism Dev Disord. 2000 Feb;30(1):3-14
10819116