title: Intact non-word repetition and similar error patterns in language-matched children with autism spectrum disorders: A pilot study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated whether enhanced auditory short-term memory may contribute to the learning of novel word forms in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. We also evaluated whether delayed but qualitatively normal, versus atypical, cognitive processes underlie non-word repetition in this population via a detailed error analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  English-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (who had significant language delay) and typically-developing children matched pairwise on language ability were compared on the Syllable Repetition Task (Shriberg et al., 2009).
  
  
  RESULTS
  All children exhibited better performance on stimuli of shorter vs. longer syllable length. In addition there was a significant interaction whereby children with Autism Spectrum Disorder performed better than typically-developing children at the longest syllable length. Repetition accuracy was significantly correlated with language level in both groups. In contrast, the relationship between Repetition accuracy and age was only marginally significant in the Autism Spectrum Disorder group and did not reach significance in the typically-developing group. This underscores the importance of language level to non-word repetition performance, and supports the practice of matching on language rather than age alone. An error analysis (Shriberg et al., 2012) showed many similarities between groups in terms of number of consonants deleted, encoding accuracy, and transcoding accuracy components of the task. However the Autism Spectrum Disorder group tended to display better auditory short-term memory with a medium effect size, though this did not reach significance given the small sample size.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings extend evidence of delayed but qualitatively normal non-word repetition previously described in preadolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Williams et al., 2013) to younger kindergarten-age children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and language delay, indicating that non-word repetition is not an area of specific difficulty for this population. With respect to enhanced auditory short-term memory, we found preliminary evidence of better memory for longer nonwords in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder compared to younger typically developing children who were matched on language.
authors.affiliation: McGill University School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, 2001 Avenue McGill College Suite 800, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1G1, Canada; Centre for Research on Brain, Language & Music, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: aparna.nadig@mcgill.ca.
authors.forename: Aparna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nadig
authors.affiliation: McGill University School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, 2001 Avenue McGill College Suite 800, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1G1, Canada.
authors.forename: Anjali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mulligan
mesh_terms: D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Auditory short-term memory; Autism spectrum disorder; Error analysis; Expressive language; Non-word repetition; Phonological processing