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Children with Autism Understand Indirect Speech Acts: Evidence from a Semi-Structured Act-Out Task.
Mikhail Kissine1, Julie Cano-Chervel2, Sophie Carlier1,2
1Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Plos One
|November 10, 2015
Summary
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can understand indirect requests in context, showing preserved pragmatic skills. This challenges the view of global pragmatic impairment in autism.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Background:
- Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is often characterized by global pragmatic impairments.
- Observational data suggests potential preservation of context-based comprehension of indirect requests in autism.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally investigate contextual understanding of indirect requests in children with ASD.
- To determine if children with ASD exhibit genuine contextual comprehension of indirect speech acts.
Main Methods:
- A semi-structured task using Mr Potato Head was administered to 15 children with ASD (7-12 years) and 20 typically developing (TD) children (2.5-3.5 years).
- The experiment involved three phases assessing responses to declarative sentences used as indirect requests and comments.
Main Results:
- Children with ASD successfully complied with indirect requests in phase 1.
- Children with ASD demonstrated the ability to inhibit directive interpretations in phases 2 and 3.
- Typically developing children experienced some difficulty with indirect instructions in phase 1.
Conclusions:
- Findings suggest a more nuanced understanding of pragmatic dysfunction in autism is needed.
- Contextual understanding of indirect requests may be a preserved ability in children with ASD.
- The study challenges the notion of a global pragmatic deficit in autism spectrum disorder.
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