Language in autism: domains, profiles and co-occurring conditions

This article reviews the current knowledge state on pragmatic and structural language abilities in autism and their potential relation to extralinguistic abilities and autistic traits. The focus is on questions regarding autism language profles with varying degrees of (selective) impairment and with respect to potential comorbidity of autism and language impairment: Is language impairment in autism the co-occurrence of two distinct conditions (comorbidity), a consequence of autism itself (no comorbidity), or one possible combination from a series of neurodevelopmental properties (dimensional approach)? As for language profles in autism, three main groups are identifed, namely, (i) verbal autistic individuals without structural language impairment, (ii) verbal autistic individuals with structural language impairment, and (iii) minimally verbal autistic individuals. However, this tripartite distinction hides enormous linguistic heterogeneity. Regarding the nature of language impairment in autism, there is currently no model of how language difculties may interact with autism characteristics and with various extralinguistic cognitive abilities. Building such a model requires carefully designed explorations that address specifc aspects of language and extralinguistic cognition. This should lead to a fundamental increase in our understanding of language impairment in autism, thereby paving the way for a substantial contribution to the question of how to best characterize neurodevelopmental disorders

Le Rôle de l’Apprentissage de la Lecture dans le Développement de la Mémoire de Travail

International audienceThis study aims to explore the role that learning to read plays in Working Memory development. The population for this research was split into two groups. The first group, which was studied longitudinally, consisted of kindergartners and first and second graders attending a regular school. The second group, which was assessed only once, consisted of poor readers in second grade. The results from the first group revealed a progressive increase in WM capacity as well as a progressive differentiation of this system (WM model of Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) between kindergarten and the second grade. Moreover, the results showed that learning to read plays a role in WM development and that the relation between these abilities is not strictly due to the involvement of more general linguistic or phonological abilities in the tasks used for the assessment of WM and reading. Finally, the poor readers’ results support the hypothesis suggesting that reading plays a fundamental role in WM development. In fact, the structural organization of WM in these children is different from the one found in children of the same education level in the other group.Cette étude vise à explorer le développement de la Mémoire de Travail ainsi que le rôle joué par l’identification des mots écrits dans ce développement. La population concernée par ce travail est composée de deux groupes : un groupe d’enfants tout-venant de GSM, de CP et de CE1 qui ont participé à l’étude longitudinale et un groupe de sujets présentant des troubles de la lecture de CE1 qui ont été évalué une seule fois. Les résultats concernant les données des sujets tout-venant révèlent une amélioration progressive des performances aux épreuves évaluant les différents composants de la MT (modèle de MT de Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) entre la GSM et le CE1 ainsi qu’une différentiation progressive de la MT pendant cette période du développement. De plus, les résultats montrent que l’entrée dans l’écrit est impliquée dans le développement et la différentiation de la MT et que les liens entre la lecture et la MT ne sont pas dû exclusivement à l’implication de facteurs linguistiques, phonologiques ou métaphonologiques généraux dans les tâches mesurant ces deux habiletés. Enfin, les résultats provenant de l’analyse des données des sujets dyslexiques soutiennent l’hypothèse selon laquelle la lecture jouerait un rôle primordial dans le développement de la MT en montrant que ces sujets présentent une organisation structurale de la MT différente de celle des sujets tout-venant du même niveau scolaire

Le Rôle de l’Apprentissage de la Lecture dans le Développement de la Mémoire de Travail

International audienceThis study aims to explore the role that learning to read plays in Working Memory development. The population for this research was split into two groups. The first group, which was studied longitudinally, consisted of kindergartners and first and second graders attending a regular school. The second group, which was assessed only once, consisted of poor readers in second grade. The results from the first group revealed a progressive increase in WM capacity as well as a progressive differentiation of this system (WM model of Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) between kindergarten and the second grade. Moreover, the results showed that learning to read plays a role in WM development and that the relation between these abilities is not strictly due to the involvement of more general linguistic or phonological abilities in the tasks used for the assessment of WM and reading. Finally, the poor readers’ results support the hypothesis suggesting that reading plays a fundamental role in WM development. In fact, the structural organization of WM in these children is different from the one found in children of the same education level in the other group.Cette étude vise à explorer le développement de la Mémoire de Travail ainsi que le rôle joué par l’identification des mots écrits dans ce développement. La population concernée par ce travail est composée de deux groupes : un groupe d’enfants tout-venant de GSM, de CP et de CE1 qui ont participé à l’étude longitudinale et un groupe de sujets présentant des troubles de la lecture de CE1 qui ont été évalué une seule fois. Les résultats concernant les données des sujets tout-venant révèlent une amélioration progressive des performances aux épreuves évaluant les différents composants de la MT (modèle de MT de Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) entre la GSM et le CE1 ainsi qu’une différentiation progressive de la MT pendant cette période du développement. De plus, les résultats montrent que l’entrée dans l’écrit est impliquée dans le développement et la différentiation de la MT et que les liens entre la lecture et la MT ne sont pas dû exclusivement à l’implication de facteurs linguistiques, phonologiques ou métaphonologiques généraux dans les tâches mesurant ces deux habiletés. Enfin, les résultats provenant de l’analyse des données des sujets dyslexiques soutiennent l’hypothèse selon laquelle la lecture jouerait un rôle primordial dans le développement de la MT en montrant que ces sujets présentent une organisation structurale de la MT différente de celle des sujets tout-venant du même niveau scolaire

The role of learning to read in working memory development

Cette étude prédictive vise à explorer le développement de la Mémoire de Travail ainsi que le rôle joué par l’identification des mots écrits dans ce développement. La population concernée par ce travail est composée de deux groupes : un groupe d’enfants tout-venant de GSM, de CP et de CE1 qui ont participé à l’étude longitudinale et un groupe de sujets présentant des troubles de la lecture de CE1 qui ont été évalué une seule fois. Les résultats concernant les données des sujets tout-venant révèlent une amélioration progressive des performances aux épreuves évaluant les différents composants de la MT (modèle de MT de Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) entre la GSM et le CE1 ainsi qu’une différentiation progressive de la MT pendant cette période du développement. De plus, les résultats montrent que l’entrée dans l’écrit est impliquée dans le développement et la différentiation de la MT et que les liens entre la lecture et la MT ne sont pas dus exclusivement à l’implication de facteurs linguistiques, phonologiques ou métaphonologiques généraux dans les tâches mesurant ces deux habiletés. Enfin, les résultats provenant de l’analyse des données des sujets dyslexiques soutiennent l’hypothèse selon laquelle la lecture jouerait un rôle primordial dans le développement de la MT en montrant que ces sujets présentent une organisation structurale de la MT différente de celle des sujets tout-venant du même niveau scolaire.This study aims to explore the role that learning to read plays in Working Memory development. The population for this research was split into two groups. The first group, which was studied longitudinally, consisted of kindergartners and first and second graders attending a regular school. The second group, which was assessed only once, consisted of poor readers in second grade. The results from the first group revealed a progressive increase in WM capacity as well as a progressive differentiation of this system (WM model of Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) between kindergarten and the second grade. Moreover, the results showed that learning to read plays a role in WM development and that the relation between these abilities is not strictly due to the involvement of more general linguistic or phonological abilities in the tasks used for the assessment of WM and reading. Finally, the poor readers’ results support the hypothesis suggesting that reading plays a fundamental role in WM development. In fact, the structural organization of WM in these children is different from the one found in children of the same education level in the other group

Le rôle de l'apprentissage de la lecture dans le développement de la mémoire de travail

Cette étude prédictive vise à explorer le développement de la Mémoire de Travail ainsi que le rôle joué par l identification des mots écrits dans ce développement. La population concernée par ce travail est composée de deux groupes : un groupe d enfants tout-venant de GSM, de CP et de CE1 qui ont participé à l étude longitudinale et un groupe de sujets présentant des troubles de la lecture de CE1 qui ont été évalué une seule fois. Les résultats concernant les données des sujets tout-venant révèlent une amélioration progressive des performances aux épreuves évaluant les différents composants de la MT (modèle de MT de Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) entre la GSM et le CE1 ainsi qu une différentiation progressive de la MT pendant cette période du développement. De plus, les résultats montrent que l entrée dans l écrit est impliquée dans le développement et la différentiation de la MT et que les liens entre la lecture et la MT ne sont pas dus exclusivement à l implication de facteurs linguistiques, phonologiques ou métaphonologiques généraux dans les tâches mesurant ces deux habiletés. Enfin, les résultats provenant de l analyse des données des sujets dyslexiques soutiennent l hypothèse selon laquelle la lecture jouerait un rôle primordial dans le développement de la MT en montrant que ces sujets présentent une organisation structurale de la MT différente de celle des sujets tout-venant du même niveau scolaire.This study aims to explore the role that learning to read plays in Working Memory development. The population for this research was split into two groups. The first group, which was studied longitudinally, consisted of kindergartners and first and second graders attending a regular school. The second group, which was assessed only once, consisted of poor readers in second grade. The results from the first group revealed a progressive increase in WM capacity as well as a progressive differentiation of this system (WM model of Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) between kindergarten and the second grade. Moreover, the results showed that learning to read plays a role in WM development and that the relation between these abilities is not strictly due to the involvement of more general linguistic or phonological abilities in the tasks used for the assessment of WM and reading. Finally, the poor readers results support the hypothesis suggesting that reading plays a fundamental role in WM development. In fact, the structural organization of WM in these children is different from the one found in children of the same education level in the other group.TOURS-Bibl.électronique (372610011) / SudocSudocFranceF

L'épreuve de répétition de non-mots LITMUS-NWR-FR évalue-t-elle la phonologie ?

International audienceThe LITMUS nonword repetition test for French (LITMUS-NWR-FR) (Ferré & Santos, 2015) was developed to primarily assess phonology in monolingual or bilingual children. The purpose of our study is to ensure that LITMUS-NWR-FR fulfills this goal by looking at the respective contribution of the following variables in children’s performance: verbal short-term memory (vSTM) and phonological similarity, cognitive flexibility, socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism. 193 children aged 3;10 to 5;0 were assessed using cognitive and language tests as well as a parental questionnaire. The results reveal no effect of bilingualism on performance at LITMUS-NWR-FR, and the SES does not show a substantial link with these performances. vSTM accounts for a significant part of the variance of LITMUS-NWR-FR scores (35%). However, all together, the variables studied explained only a moderate part of the variation. This result support our hypothesis, phonology seems to be the main variable assessed by this test.L’épreuve de répétition de non-mots LITMUS-NWR-FR (Ferré & Santos, 2015) a été élaborée afin d’évaluer essentiellement le domaine phonologique chez l’enfant monolingue ou bilingue. L’objet de notre étude est de s’assurer que LITMUS-NWR-FR remplit cet objectif en s’intéressant à la contribution respective des variables suivantes dans les performances à ce test: la mémoire à court terme verbale (MCTv)et lasimilarité phonologique, la flexibilité cognitive, le niveau socio-économique (NSE) et le bilinguisme. 193 enfants tout-venant âgés de 3;10 à 5;0 ans ont été évalués à l’aide d’épreuves cognitivo-langagières et de questionnaires parentaux. Les résultats ne révèlent aucun effet du bilinguisme sur les performances à LITMUS-NWR-FR, et le NSE ne présente pas de lien substantiel avec ces performances. La MCTv explique une part non négligeable de la variance des scores à LITMUS-NWR-FR(35%). Toutefois, la part expliquée parl’ensemble des variables étudiées demeure modérée. Ce résultat conforte notre hypothèse selon laquelle ce test mesure principalement la phonologie

ELO-L: A Norm-Referenced Language Screening Test for 3 to 8-Year-Old Lebanese Children

peer reviewedThe ELO-L (Évaluation du langage oral chez l’enfant libanais) is the first norm-referenced language-screening test in Lebanon. It is an adaptation of the ELO, a French language-screening test. The ELO-L was normed on 1,718 children aged three to eight years and divided into eight age groups with a minimum of 100 participants in each group. It is composed of five subtests targeting receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, sentence comprehension, sentence production and expressive phonology. We explain how the test was adapted for Lebanese, and present the subtests, the scoring method and the normative sample. We furthermore give the first validation results, reporting on developmental sensitivity, reliability, concurrent validity and diagnostic accuracy

Syntactic complexity and verbal working memory in bilingual children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

International audienceSentence repetition (SR) tasks have been shown to be excellent indicators of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). However, there is still no consensus about which core ability they measure: language vs. Verbal Short-Term Memory (VSTM) and Verbal Working Memory (WM). Moreover, very few studies have investigated whether variables predicting SR performance differ in children with DLD compared to typically developing (TD) children, especially concerning bilingual children. This article reports on an SR study of 76 5- to 8-year-old bilingual children with ( n = 23) and without ( n = 53) DLD. The Bi-DLD group displayed significantly lower scores than the Bi-TD group on SR and on VSTM and WM measures. Regression analyses showed that SR was mainly linked to WM in the Bi-DLD group, but not in the TD group, where SR was mainly linked to (independent) language measures. This suggests that children with DLD, who have deficient linguistic knowledge, may rely more on their general processing ability (i.e. WM) in contrast to Bi-TD children, whose language skills are normal, and thus can be solicited for SR. Moreover, individual results suggested that performance on SR does not depend on minimal VSTM or WM spans

Pragmatic versus structural difficulties in the production of pronominal clitics in French-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

Background and aims Impaired production of third person accusative pronominal clitics is a signature of language impairment in French-speaking children. It has been found to be a prominent and persistent difficulty in children and adolescents with specific language impairment. Previous studies have reported that many children with autism spectrum disorder also have low performance on these clitics. However, it remains unclear whether these difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder are due to structural language impairment or to pragmatic deficits. This is because pragmatics skills, notoriously weak in children with autism spectrum disorder, are also needed for appropriate use of pronouns. Use of pronouns without clear referents and difficulty with discourse pronouns (first and second person), which require taking into account the point of view of one’s interlocutor (perspective shifting), have frequently been reported for autism spectrum disorder. Methods We elicited production of nominative, reflexive and accusative third and first person pronominal clitics in 19 verbal children with autism spectrum disorder (aged 6–12, high and low functioning, with structural language impairment, or with normal language) and 19 age-matched children with specific language impairment. If pragmatics is behind difficulties on these elements, performance on first-person clitics would be expected to be worse than performance on third person clitics, since it requires perspective shifting. Furthermore, worse performance for first person clitics was expected in the children with autism spectrum disorder compared to the children with specific language impairment, since weak pragmatics is an integral part of impairment in the former, but not in the latter. More generally, different error patterns would be expected in the two groups, if the source of difficulty with clitics is different (a pragmatic deficit vs. a structural language deficit). Results Similar patterns of relative difficulties were found in the autism spectrum disorder language impairment and specific language impairment groups, with third person accusative clitics being produced at lower rates than first-person pronouns and error patterns being essentially identical. First-person pronouns did not pose particular difficulties in the children with autism spectrum disorder (language impairment or normal language) with respect to third-person pronouns or to the children with specific language impairment. Performance was not related to nonverbal intelligence in the autism spectrum disorder group. Conclusions The elicitation task used in this study included explicit instruction, and focus on perspective shifting (both visual and verbal), allowing for potential pragmatic effects to be controlled. Moreover, the task elicited a variety of types of clitics in morphosyntactic contexts of varying complexity, providing ample opportunities for employment of perspective shifting, which may have also curtailed perseveration of third person over first person. These properties of the task allowed for the grammatical nature of children’s difficulties with third-person accusative clitics to emerge unambiguously. Implications Assessment of structural language abilities in children with autism spectrum disorder requires careful consideration of task demands. The influence of pragmatic abilities on structural language performance can be circumvented by making the pragmatic demands of the task explicit and salient. Filtering out this potential influence on structural language performance is fundamental to understanding language profiles in children with autism spectrum disorder and thus which children could benefit from which kinds of language intervention

Specific Language Impairment and Bilingualism: Assembling the pieces

International audienc