Normal but Different: Autistic Adolescents Who Score Within Normal Ranges on Standardized Language Tests Produce Frequent Linguistic Irregularities in Spontaneous Discourse.

IF 2.5 Q1 EDUCATION, SPECIAL
Autism and Developmental Language Impairments Pub Date : 2024-09-23 eCollection Date: 2024-01-01 DOI:10.1177/23969415241283378
Emily R Zane, Ruth B Grossman
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background and aims: A substantial minority of autistic individuals score within typical ranges on standard language tests, suggesting that autism does not necessarily affect language acquisition. This idea is reflected in current diagnostic criteria for autism, wherein language impairment is no longer included. However, some work has suggested that probing autistic speakers' language carefully may reveal subtle differences between autistic and nonautistic people's language that cannot be captured by standardized language testing. The current study aims to test this idea, by determining whether a group of autistic and nonautistic individuals who score similarly on a standardized test show differences in the number of unconventional and erroneous language features they produce in a spontaneous language sample.

Methods: Thirty-eight older children and adolescents (19 autistic; 19 nonautistic), between the ages of 10 and 18, were recruited. Both participant groups scored within normal ranges on standardized language and IQ tests. Participants engaged in a "double interview" with an experimenter, during which they were first asked questions by the experimenter about themselves, and then they switched roles, so that it was the participant's turn to ask the experimenter questions. Participants' language during the interview was transcribed and analyzed for linguistic irregularities, including both semantic anomalies and morphosyntactic errors.

Results: Group membership accounted for significant variance in irregularity frequency; autistic participants produced more linguistic irregularities than nonautistic participants. Scores on a standardized language test did not improve model fit. Secondary analyses involving irregularity type (semantic vs. morphosyntactic) showed that group differences were primarily driven by relatively high numbers of semantic unconventionalities produced by the autistic group. While the autistic group made more morphosyntactic errors than the nonautistic group, differences in these numbers were only marginally significant.

Conclusions and implications: These findings suggest that a commonly used standardized language test does not adequately predict the number and perhaps type of language irregularities produced by some older autistic children and adolescents during spontaneous discourse. Results also suggest that differences in language use, especially semantic differences, may characterize autistic language, even the language produced by people who score within normal ranges on standardized language tests. It is debatable whether differences reflect underlying language impairments and/or a linguistic style adopted/preferred by autistic speakers. In this paper, we discuss both possibilities and offer suggestions to future research for teasing these possibilities apart.

正常但不同:在标准化语言测试中得分在正常范围内的自闭症青少年在自发话语中经常出现语言不规则。
背景和目的:相当少数的自闭症患者在标准语言测试中的得分在典型范围内,这表明自闭症并不一定影响语言的习得。这一观点反映在目前的自闭症诊断标准中,其中不再包括语言障碍。然而,一些研究表明,仔细探究自闭症患者的语言,可能会发现自闭症患者与非自闭症患者在语言上的细微差别,而这些差异是标准化语言测试无法捕捉到的。本研究旨在验证这一观点,方法是确定一组在标准化测试中得分相似的自闭症患者和非自闭症患者在自发语言样本中产生的非常规和错误语言特征的数量是否存在差异:招募了 38 名年龄在 10 到 18 岁之间的大龄儿童和青少年(19 名自闭症患者;19 名非自闭症患者)。两组参与者在标准化语言和智商测试中的得分均在正常范围内。参与者与实验者进行 "双重访谈",在访谈过程中,实验者首先向参与者提出有关他们自己的问题,然后他们互换角色,轮到参与者向实验者提问。参与者在访谈过程中的语言被记录下来,并对语言不规范进行分析,包括语义异常和语态句法错误:结果:群体成员身份造成了不规则语频率的显著差异;自闭症参与者比非自闭症参与者产生了更多的不规则语。标准化语言测试的得分并没有提高模型的拟合度。涉及不规范类型(语义与形态句法)的二次分析表明,自闭症组的差异主要是由自闭症组产生的相对较多的语义不规范引起的。虽然自闭症组比非自闭症组犯了更多的形态句法错误,但这些错误数量的差异仅有轻微的显著性:这些研究结果表明,一个常用的标准化语言测试并不能充分预测一些年龄较大的自闭症儿童和青少年在自发话语中产生的语言不规范的数量和类型。研究结果还表明,语言使用中的差异,尤其是语义差异,可能是自闭症语言的特点,即使是那些在标准化语言测试中得分在正常范围内的人所使用的语言也是如此。这些差异是否反映了潜在的语言障碍和/或自闭症患者所采用/偏好的语言风格,尚存在争议。在本文中,我们将讨论这两种可能性,并为未来的研究提供建议,以便将这些可能性区分开来。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Autism and Developmental Language Impairments
Autism and Developmental Language Impairments Psychology-Clinical Psychology
CiteScore
3.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
20
审稿时长
12 weeks
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