The use of grammatical morphemes by Mandarin-speaking children with high functioning autism.
The present study investigated the production of grammatical morphemes by Mandarin-speaking children with high functioning autism. Previous research found that a subgroup of English-speaking children with autism exhibit deficits in the use of grammatical morphemes that mark tense. In order to see whether this impairment in grammatical morphology can be generalised to children with autism from other languages, the present study examined whether or not high-functioning Mandarin-speaking children with autism also exhibit deficits in using grammatical morphemes that mark aspect. The results show that Mandarin-speaking children with autism produced grammatical morphemes significantly less often than age-matched and IQ-matched TD peers as well as MLU-matched TD peers. The implications of these findings for understanding the grammatical abilities of children with autism were discussed.
Department of Cognitive Science, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia, peng.zhou@mq.edu.au.
Peng
P
Zhou
Stephen
S
Crain
Liqun
L
Gao
Ye
Y
Tang
Meixiang
M
Jia
D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D007807:Language Tests; D010379:Peer Group