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Published on: October 3, 2018
Atypical Brain Connectivity During Pragmatic and Semantic Language Processing in Children with Autism
Amparo V Márquez-García1, Vasily A Vakorin1, Nataliia Kozhemiako2
1Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
Background/Objectives:
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face challenges in social communication due to difficulties in considering context, processing information, and interpreting social cues. This study aims to explore the neural processes related to pragmatic language communication in children with ASD and address the research question of how functional brain connectivity operates during complex pragmatic language tasks.
Methods:
We examined differences in brain functional connectivity between children with ASD and typically developing peers while they engaged in video recordings of spoken language tasks. We focused on two types of speech acts: semantic and pragmatic.
Results:
Our results showed differences between groups during the pragmatic and semantic language processing, indicating more idiosyncratic connectivity in children with ASD in the Left Somatomotor and Left Limbic networks, suggesting that these networks play a role in task-dependent functional connectivity. Additionally, these functional differences were mainly localized to the left hemisphere.
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