Children with autism align syntax in natural conversation
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT Previous experimental work has shown that verbal children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) converge linguistically, or align, with an interlocutor, and to the same extent as typical children. However, it is not known whether ASD children align in natural conversation. The studies presented in this paper aimed to address this issue. We measured syntactic alignment in ASD children, first using an experimental task, and second in natural conversation. We found that ASD and typical children aligned to the same extent in both tasks, suggesting that experimental findings about alignment in ASD are ecologically valid. We argue, however, that the experimental measurement of alignment overstates the prevalence of syntactic alignment in children's conversations.
Source: Applied Psycholinguistics
Authors: ZOË HOPKINS, NICOLA YUILL, BILL KELLER
Institution: University of Sussex
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2050464977