Coarticulation facilitates lexical processing for toddlers with autism

Ron Pomper; Susan Ellis Weismer; Jenny Saffran; Jan Edwards

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104799

Coarticulation facilitates lexical processing for toddlers with autism

Cognition. 2021 Sep:214:104799. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104799. Epub 2021 Jun 15.

Authors

Ron Pomper¹, Susan Ellis Weismer², Jenny Saffran³, Jan Edwards⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Brogden Hall 1202, West Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA; Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705, USA. Electronic address: ron.pomper@wisc.edu.
² Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705, USA; Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Goodnight Hall, 1975 Willow Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Brogden Hall 1202, West Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA; Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705, USA.
⁴ Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, Samuel J. LeFrak Hall, 7521 Preinkert Drive, College Park, MD 20742, USA.

Abstract

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are delayed in learning language. The mechanisms underlying these delays are not well understood but may involve differences in how children process language. In the current experiment, we compared how 3- to 4-year-old children with ASD (n = 58) and 2- to 3-year-old children who are typically developing (TD, n = 44) use phonological information to incrementally process speech. Children saw pictures of objects displayed on a screen and heard sentences labeling one of the objects (e.g., Find the ball). For some sentences, the determiner the contained coarticulatory information about the onset of the target word. For other sentences, the determiner the did not contain any coarticulatory information. Children were faster to fixate the target object for sentences with vs. without coarticulation. This effect of coarticulation was the same for children with ASD compared to their TD peers. When controlling for group differences in receptive language ability, the effect of coarticulation was stronger for children with ASD compared to their TD peers. These results suggest that phonological processing is an area of relative strength for children with ASD.

Keywords: Autism; Individual differences; Language processing; Phonology; Prediction.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Autism Spectrum Disorder*
Autistic Disorder*
Child Language
Child, Preschool
Humans
Language Development Disorders*
Linguistics

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding