Article Choice in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Doatske de Haan, Jeannette Schaeffer & Merel van Witteloostuijn

Taalkunde in Nederland-dag

1 February 2014

Article Choice in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Introduction

Topic Choice between definite and indefinite article in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Main claims Article choice is driven by pragmatics Children with ASD are pragmatically impaired Children with ASD perform below age norms regarding

article choice Children with SLI are not pragmatically impaired Children with SLI perform well regarding article choice

2 Article choice in children with ASD and with SLI

Background – Article Choice in Dutch

Examples article choice: (1) Dit is een verhaal over een (bepaalde) jongen. De jongen woonde in een groot kasteel. ‘This is a story about a (certain) boy. The boy lived in a big castle’ (2) Ik heb zin om een boek te lezen (wat voor boek dan ook).

‘I feel like reading a book (whatever book it may be).


Background - cont’d

A: Definite (Referential)

Referent assumed to exist by speaker and hearer

the (de/het)

B: Indefinite Referential

Referent assumed to exist by speaker only

a (een)

C: Indefinite Non-referential

Referent assumed to exist by neither speaker nor hearer

a (een)

Schaeffer & Matthewson (2005) (based on Stalnaker, 1974; 1978; Heim, 1982)


Previous acquisition studies Overgeneration of the in indefinite referential contexts (Maratsos, 1976; Karmiloff-Smith, 1979; Zehler & Brewer, 1982; Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005, van Hout et al., 2010; Zdorenko & Paradis, 2011)

Examples Situation: Picture of Mickey Mouse who just finished drawing a house (visible to child, but not to experimenter). Exp: What did Mickey Mouse just do? Child: He drew the house (Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005)

A cat and two birds were sitting in a tree. Something flew out. What was it? Child: the bird (van Hout et al., 2010)


Previous acquisition studies – cont’d

Concept of Non-Shared Assumptions (CNSA): Speaker and hearer assumptions are always independent Schaeffer & Matthewson (2005)

Young children lack this pragmatic principle and sometimes base their article choice solely on speaker assumptions the-overuse in indefinite referential contexts



Overgeneration of a in definite contexts (van Hout et al., 2010)

Example Exp: Jimmy’s class was going on a picnic! There was lots of food, drink, baskets, silverware and a blanket. They laid something out on the ground for everyone to sit on. When it was all spread out, everyone sat down on… Child: a blanket



Young children fail to calculate scalar implicatures because of immature pragmatics (Chierchia et al., 2004; Noveck, 2001; Papafragou, 2006; Pouscoulous et al., 2007) a-overgeneration in definite contexts Van Hout et al (2010)

8 Article choice in children with ASD and with

SLI


Definiteness Scale (Horn, 2006) weak term strong term

<a, the> Definite context: Semantically, both a and the are correct Pragmatically, the is stronger/more informative Maxim of Quantity (Grice, 1975)

Be as informative as is required/necessary (not more, and not less)



Scalar implicature Choice of the weaker term a suggests that the stronger term the does not hold (referent is assumed to exist only by speaker, and NOT by both speaker and hearer)

Young children don’t calculate scalar implicatures free choice between the and a in definite contexts overgeneration of a (van Hout et al., 2010)


Present study – Hypotheses (1) (based on Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005)

I. For correct indefinite article choice, it is necessary to have an intact CNSA

II. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have impaired pragmatics, and possibly lack the CNSA

III. Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) do not have impaired pragmatics, so their CNSA is intact


Present study – Hypotheses (2) (based on van Hout et al., 2010)

I. For correct definite article choice, it is necessary to calculate a scalar implicature

II. Children with ASD have impaired pragmatics, so possibly fail to calculate scalar implicature

III. Children with SLI do not have impaired pragmatics, so no difficulty to calculate scalar implicature


Present study – Predictions (ASD)

I. Children with ASD overuse de/het in referential indefinite contexts because they lack CNSA

II. Children with ASD overuse een in definite contexts because they fail to calculate scalar implicature


Present study – Predictions (SLI)

I. Children with SLI do not overuse de/het in referential indefinite contexts because they do not lack CNSA

II. Children with SLI do not overuse een in definite contexts because they can calculate scalar implicature


Methods

Participants: 16 children with SLI: age 6 – 13, mean 9.06 (SD 2.05)

16 children wih ASD: age 6 – 13, mean 9.13 (SD 2.28)

16 TD children: age 6 – 13, mean 9.31 (SD 2.31)

7 adults


Methods – cont’d

Materials: Elicited Production Task

* Two items were removed because of an item effect

Condition #items

1 – Definite 6

2 – Indefinite referential 10*

3 – Indefinite non-referential 12

Total experimental items 28

Fillers 18


Methods - Sample item (Definite condition)

Clip of a puppet with a ball

Exp 2: Hé, wie zie je op het plaatje? (‘Hey, who do you see in the picture?’)

Child : *Naam*! (name of the puppet)

Exp 2: En wat nog meer? (‘What else do you see?’)

Child: Een bal! (‘A ball!’)

Article choice in children with ASD and with SLI

17




Exp 2: Wat deed *naam* daarnet? (‘Wat did *name* just do?’)

Target: Zij rolde de/het bal (‘She rolled the bal’)


Results: Indefinite – Non-Referential Proportions of definite (incorrect), indefinite (correct), and irrelevant responses

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

TD ASD SLI Adult

1 0 4

0

95 92 91

98

4 7 5

2

% Definite

Indefinite

Irrelevant


Results: Indefinite - Referential Proportions of definite (incorrect), indefinite (correct), and irrelevant responses

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

TD ASD SLI Adult

0 0 1 0

98

90 86

90

2

10 13

10

% Definite

Indefinite

Irrelevant


Results: Definite Proportions of definite (incorrect), indefinite (correct), and irrelevant responses

Significant difference between ASD and TD (U = 77, p = .026)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

TD ASD SLI Adult

94

77 82

98

5

19 12

2 1 6 6

0

% Definite

Indefinite

Irrelevant


Summary of results

None of the participants overgenerated de/het in indefinite contexts

Children with ASD produce indefinite articles in definite contexts significantly more often than TD children

Children with SLI also produce indefinite articles in definite contexts more often than TD children, but the difference is not significant

25 Article choice in children with ASD and with

SLI

Individual Results - Heterogeneity

In definite condition: Pass: 0 or 1 indefinite article (out of 6) Fail: 2 or more indefinite articles (out of 6) ASD group: 10 passers and 6 failers (ages of failers: 6, 6, 9, 9, 11, 11)

SLI group: 14 passers and 2 failers (ages of failers: 8, 10)


Results (passers vs. failers): Definite Proportions of definite (correct), indefinite (incorrect), and irrelevant responses

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

TD SLI + SLI - ASD + ASD -

94 88

25

90

47

5 6

58

5

42

1 6

17

5 11

% Definite

Indefinite

Irrelevant

• SLI- (U=.5, p=.006) and ASD- (U=4.5, p=.000) differ significantly from TD • SLI+ and ASD+ do not differ significantly from TD


Discussion

No de/het overgeneration: no support for lack of (pragmatic) CNSA in either SLI or ASD group

Een overgeneration: suggests failure to calculate scalar implicature

ASD: 6/16 = 38% fails to calculate (pragmatic) scalar implicature

SLI: 2/16 = 13% fails to calculate (pragmatic) scalar implicature

Failure to calculate scalar implicature does not seem to depend on age


Conclusions

Neither children with SLI nor children with ASD > 6 lack CNSA

Most children with SLI calculate scalar implicature for definiteness

Substantial number of children with ASD fail to calculate scalar implicature for definiteness

Evidence for hypothesis that most children with SLI

are not pragmatically impaired Evidence for hypothesis that children with ASD are

often pragmatically impaired


New research questions

Is there a subgroup of SLI that has an additional pragmatic impairment? (so far only 2)

How do the children with ASD perform on other pragmatically driven linguistic phenomena? (go to talk by Schaeffer & Geutjes on scrambling!)

How is the grammar of children with ASD?

Correlation with Theory of Mind (False Belief) scores, with Executive Function scores? 30 Article choice in children with ASD and with

SLI

Acknowledgements

Iris Duinmeijer – AIO UvA Jorik Geutjes (RMA UU), Kim Schoof (BA UvA),

Sybren Spit (BA UvA), Irene Rademaker (BA UU)

All our child participants and their parents Adult participants


Article Choice in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

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