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Involving Individuals with Developmental Language Disorder and Their Parents/Carers in Research Priority Setting
Published on: June 6, 2020
Thinking Ahead: Incremental Language Processing is Associated with Receptive Language Abilities in Preschoolers with
Courtney E Venker1,2, Jan Edwards3,4,5, Jenny R Saffran3,6
1Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA. cvenker@msu.edu.
Abstract:
In typical development, listeners can use semantic content of verbs to facilitate incremental language processing-a skill that is associated with existing language skills. Studies of children with ASD have not identified an association between incremental language processing in semantically-constraining contexts and language skills, perhaps because participants were adolescents and/or children with strong language skills. This study examined incremental language processing and receptive language in young children with ASD with a range of language skills. Children showed a head start when presented with semantically-constraining verbs (e.g., Read the book) compared to neutral verbs (e.g., Find the book). Children with weaker receptive language showed a smaller head start than children with stronger receptive language skills, suggesting continuity between typical development and ASD.
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