Marjolein Mues, Ellen Demurie, Maide Erdogan, Sarah Schaubroeck, Manon Krol, Amy Goodwin, Jan Buitelaar, Eva Loth, Herbert Roeyers
{"title":"Uh and um in autism: The case of hesitation marker usage in Dutch-speaking autistic preschoolers","authors":"Marjolein Mues, Ellen Demurie, Maide Erdogan, Sarah Schaubroeck, Manon Krol, Amy Goodwin, Jan Buitelaar, Eva Loth, Herbert Roeyers","doi":"10.1017/s0305000924000321","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>English-speaking autistic children use the hesitation marker <span>um</span> less often than non-autistic children but use <span>uh</span> at a similar rate. It is unclear why this is the case. We employed a sample of Dutch-speaking children from the Preschool Brain Imaging and Behavior Project to examine hesitation markers in autistic and non-autistic preschoolers with the aim to 1) make a crosslinguistic comparison of hesitation marker usage and 2) examine hypotheses regarding the underlying linguistic mechanisms of hesitation markers: the symptom hypothesis and the signal hypothesis. We found initial group differences in all hesitation markers but these results were rendered insignificant after controlling for age, sex and nonverbal cognition. We found significant correlations between hesitation marker usage and expressive and receptive language, but not autism traits. Lastly, we show interesting cross-linguistic differences in hesitation marker usage between Dutch-speaking participants and previously described English-speaking participants, such as a preference for <span>um</span> over <span>uh</span>.</p>","PeriodicalId":48132,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Language","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Child Language","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000924000321","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
English-speaking autistic children use the hesitation marker um less often than non-autistic children but use uh at a similar rate. It is unclear why this is the case. We employed a sample of Dutch-speaking children from the Preschool Brain Imaging and Behavior Project to examine hesitation markers in autistic and non-autistic preschoolers with the aim to 1) make a crosslinguistic comparison of hesitation marker usage and 2) examine hypotheses regarding the underlying linguistic mechanisms of hesitation markers: the symptom hypothesis and the signal hypothesis. We found initial group differences in all hesitation markers but these results were rendered insignificant after controlling for age, sex and nonverbal cognition. We found significant correlations between hesitation marker usage and expressive and receptive language, but not autism traits. Lastly, we show interesting cross-linguistic differences in hesitation marker usage between Dutch-speaking participants and previously described English-speaking participants, such as a preference for um over uh.
期刊介绍:
A key publication in the field, Journal of Child Language publishes articles on all aspects of the scientific study of language behaviour in children, the principles which underlie it, and the theories which may account for it. The international range of authors and breadth of coverage allow the journal to forge links between many different areas of research including psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach spans a wide range of interests: phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, or any other recognised facet of language study.