Brief report: pointing cues facilitate word learning in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reportedly have difficulty associating novel words to an object via the speaker's gaze. It has also been suggested that their performance is related to their gaze duration on the object and improves when the object moves and becomes more salient. However, there is a possibility that they have only relied on the object's movement and have not referenced the speaker's cue (i.e. gaze direction). The current study with children with ASD and typically developing children aged 6-11 years demonstrated that adding another speaker's cue (i.e. pointing) improves the performance of children with ASD. This suggests that additional speaker's cues may help referential word learning in children with ASD.
Department of Cognitive and Behavioral Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, Japan. akechi@cogn.jp
Hironori
H
Akechi
Yukiko
Y
Kikuchi
Yoshikuni
Y
Tojo
Hiroo
H
Osanai
Toshikazu
T
Hasegawa
D020817:Asperger Syndrome / Q000523:psychology; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000523:psychology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014706:Verbal Learning