When do Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Take Common Ground into Account During Communication?

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Background:

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in verbal reference production.
• Previous research has not fully explored the role of social perspective-taking in ASD communication.
• Interpreting verbal reference often requires understanding social context beyond visual perspective.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if children with ASD use social perspective to comprehend and produce verbal references.
• To compare social perspective-taking abilities in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children.

Main Methods:

• 22 children with ASD and 22 TD children participated.
• Social perspective was manipulated using knowledgeable versus naive interlocutors.
• Study 1 assessed comprehension of ambiguous references; Study 2 assessed production of referring terms.

Main Results:

• No significant group differences were found in interpreting ambiguous references based on social perspective.
• Children with ASD modified references based on listener needs, but less strongly than TD children.
• TD children demonstrated a significantly stronger effect of tailoring language for a specific listener.

Conclusions:

• High-functioning children with ASD can utilize knowledge of shared experiences to guide verbal reference.
• Despite this ability, children with ASD exhibit performance limitations compared to TD children in social perspective-taking for communication.
• Findings highlight specific challenges in pragmatic language use within ASD.