Internal state language in the storybook narratives of children with and without autism spectrum disorder: Investigating relations to theory of mind abilities

Abstract

The current study examines narratives elicited using a wordless picture book, focusing on language used to describe the characters’ thoughts and emotions (i.e., internal state language, ISL). The sample includes 21 children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and 24 typically developing controls, matched on children's gender, IQ, as well as receptive and expressive vocabulary. This research had three major findings. First, despite equivalent performance on standardized language assessments, the volume of children's narratives (i.e., the number of utterances and words, the range of unique verbs and adjectives) was lower in children with ASD than in typically developing controls. Second, after controlling for narrative volume, the narratives of children with ASD were less likely to reference the characters’ emotions than was the case for typically developing controls. Finally, our results revealed a specific association between children's use of emotion terms and their performance on a battery of experimental tasks evaluating children's Theory of Mind abilities. Implications for our understanding of narrative deficits in ASD as well as interventions that use narrative as a context for improving social comprehension are discussed.

Speaking the Same Language? A Preliminary Investigation, Comparing the Language and Communication Skills of Females and Males with High-Functioning Autism

“…We found significant differences according to diagnostic group (TD > HFASD), but not gender, on the total number of emotion terms in spontaneous narrative, similar to previous research (Perlman-Avnion and Eviatar 2002;Sillar et al 2014). However, a female advantage in this task would be predicted from TD population studies (Thompson and Moore 2000;Newman et al 2008).…”

“…For example, one implication of using fewer causal markers at the above-sentence level might be impoverished sequencing of related information in narrative and discourse. Poor sequencing of narrative information will directly impact on conveying a point of view (Sillar et al 2014), which will in turn impact on the individual's ability to self-advocate. In addition, a narrower range of vocabulary choices in connected speech will also mark the speaker as less skilled than her peers and subtly less linguistically mature.…”

“…A deficit in understanding and expressing the language of emotion is a primary characteristic of HFASD (Frith 1991). Various studies identify difficulties with mental state vocabulary (Kelley et al 2006;Ziatas et al 1998) and generating emotional vocabulary items in spontaneous storytelling (Perlman-Avnion and Eviatar 2002;Sillar et al 2014). Others point to difficulties in identifying emotions (Hobson and Lee 1989) and naming emotions from pictures (Lindner and Rosen 2006).…”

“I love the cute caterpillar!” autistic children's production of internal state language across contexts and relations to Joint Attention and theory of mind

“…In contrast, Losh and Capps (2003) found that autistic children's use of mental state terms in personal and storybook narratives (cognitive or affective) were significantly associated with their ability to define emotions, but not to ToM abilities. Recent work (Siller, Swanson, Serlin, & Teachworth, 2014) showed that autistic children's general ToM scores were related to their use of emotion terms during a wordless picture book interaction, but not to their use of cognition terms.…”

Implicit and Spontaneous Theory of Mind Reasoning in Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…In contrast, Losh and Capps [47] found that autistic children's use of mental state terms in personal and storybook narratives (cognitive or affective) were significantly associated with their ability to define emotions, but not to ToM abilities. Recent work [50] showed that autistic children's general ToM scores were related to their use of emotion terms during a wordless picture book interaction, but not to their use of cognition terms. Differences across studies might have to do with context effects on internal state talk.…”