Comprehension of core grammar in diverse samples of Mandarin-acquiring preschool children with ASD

Abstract

In this review, we summarize studies investigating comprehension of three core grammatical structures (Subject-Verb-Object word order, grammatical aspect and wh-questions) in diverse samples of Mandarin-acquiring preschoolers with ASD, all utilizing the Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL) paradigm. Results showed that children with ASD, though they were delayed in chronological age and expressive language (including significantly lower vocabulary production scores), acquired various grammatical constructions similarly to their typically developing peers. Moreover, Mandarin-acquiring preschoolers with ASD demonstrated similar acquisition patterns of these three core grammatical structures, as has been reported in previous IPL studies among English-acquiring children with ASD (Naigles & Fein, 2017). Thus, the results testify that universal underlying mechanisms are playing vital roles in grammatical acquisition of children with ASD across languages (e.g., the setting of word order parameters, the preservation of functional morphemes, the universal operation of WH-Movement), despite their pervasive social cognition impairments. These findings suggest that core grammatical knowledge may be preserved in children with ASD, even in the face of radical differences in language environment and social/communicative deficits, supporting the contribution of the language faculty in autistic language acquisition. The results shed light on the sharp contrast between linguistic competence (governed by the internal computational system of the language faculty) vs. linguistic performance (affected by loci of impairment in the sensory-motor and the conceptual-intentional interfaces) in ASD. Furthermore, the results highlight the dissociation between the lexical vs. the grammatical modules in ASD, supporting a modular view of the diverse language domains in the language faculty.

Editorial for the Special Issue - Language and Reading in Autism: Perspectives from Chinese

“…This article not only provides additional evidence for successful semantic processing mechanisms in individuals with ASD but also serves as important guidance for language therapy interventions by helping individuals with ASD establish self-related situations and promoting the effective processing of prominent semantic information. Thus, these two studies support good core language abilities in Chinese children with ASD; with these constructions, at least, the potential challenges posed by the discourse focus of Chinese grammar did not seem to have resulted in language impairments (see also Su & Naigles, 2022 ).…”

The relevance of words and the language/communication divide

“…As Begby (2017) puts it: '… homesign offers a vivid illustration of the central Relevance-Theoretic claim that ostensive-inferential processes are autonomous and can serve the ends of communication even in the absence of a conventional code' (p. 699), and 'individual homesign gestures are possessed of meaning, however much that meaning fails to fall under any sort of pre-existing public norm' 22 Directly parallel results have been found in recent work testing pre-school Chinese autistic children (Su and Naigles, 2022).…”