Language and Speech in Autism: Annual Review of Linguistics

Language and Speech in Autism

Annual Review of Linguistics

Vol. 2: 413-425 (Volume publication date January 2016)

First published online as a Review in Advance on November 4, 2015

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030514-124824

Morton Ann Gernsbacher,¹ Emily M. Morson,² and Elizabeth J. Grace³

¹Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706; email: MAGernsb@wisc.edu

²Departments of Psychology and Neuroscience, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405; email: emorson@umail.iu.edu

³Department of Special Education, National Louis University, Chicago, Illinois 60603; email: Elizabeth.Grace@nl.edu

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ABSTRACT

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by atypical social interaction, interests or body movements, and communication. Our review examines the empirical status of three communication phenomena believed to be unique to autism: pronoun reversal (using the pronoun you when the pronoun I is intended, and vice versa), echolalia (repeating what someone has said), and a reduced or even reversed production-comprehension lag (a reduction or reversal of the well-established finding that speakers produce less sophisticated language than they can comprehend). Each of these three phenomena has been claimed to be unique to autism; therefore, each has been proposed to be diagnostic of autism, and each has been interpreted in autism-centric ways (psychoanalytic interpretations of pronoun reversal, behaviorist interpretations of echolalia, and clinical lore about the production-comprehension lag). However, as our review demonstrates, none of these three phenomena is in fact unique to autism; none can or should serve as diagnostic of autism, and all call into question unwarranted assumptions about autistic persons and their language development and use.

Sharing Beyond Words: How Humans Communicate Through Sound via BrowZine

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Can't wait to read. Dr. Kraus does some of the best sound/auditory/cognition research in her Auditory Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern University

Development of sound (Ga) understand: File under the Gv Gallery Hall of Fame

Cool helpful visual-graphic.

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Word retrieval/access--let kids use their hands to gesture

Interesting study that suggests, as per the Lexical Retrieval Hypothesis, that the use of motoric gestures during speech facilitates word access/retrieval in kids.

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Background noise may disrupt speech perception via neural timing synchronization problems

Yet more research supporting the role of the brain clock in human behavior, this time (again) focusing on the importance of neural timing/temporal resolution being negatively influenced by background noise. Impaired auditory signal processing may disrupt speech perception in invidiauls with speech perception problems.

More extensive research on the brain clock can be found at the Brain Clock blog (http://www.brainclock.net)

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Womens memories more speech specific?

FYI from BPS blog.

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Talking to yourself--private speech (self-talk)

Interesting post at Mind Hacks re: the neuropsychology of private thoughts (self-talk). Mind Hacks is one of my favorite mind/brain/cognition blogs.


Technorati Tags: psychology, neuropsychology, school psychology, educational psychology, brain, cognition, intelligence, speech, thought

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Nonword (Ga/Gsm) repetition tasks - literature to track

Sorry for my very inconsistent posting over the past few months. This summer has been crazy as I work with my lovely fiance to plan a wedding, sell two houses, and build a new house :)

The purpose of this post is to alert readers to a trend I've detected (I may be late in this detection...but...at least I've now noticed it..better late than never)---an increasing body of empirical literature that implicates the abilities measured by non-word repetition tasks in the identification of children with specific language impairments (SLI). Today I ran across a meta-analysis by Estes et al. (2007; click here to view) that continues to highlight the importance of these abilities and measurement tasks. The abstract is reproduced below.

Something important seems to be measured by non-word repetition tasks, although what these abilities are is a matter of debate. As noted by Estes et al.:

• "There has been considerable debate surrounding the nature of the skills tapped in nonword repetition, whether it recruits phonological working memory (Bishop et al., 1996; Botting & Conti-Ramsden, 2001; Montgomery, 1995b; Van der Lely & Howard, 1993), phonological encoding (Kamhi & Catts, 1986), phonological awareness or sensitivity (e.g., Metsala, 1999), or a general phonological processing ability (e.g., Bowey, 1996, 2001). Many authors have also acknowledged that the act of repeating nonwords involves multiple processes (e.g., Briscoe, Bishop, & Norbury, 2001; Edwards & Lahey, 1998; Gathercole, Willis, Baddeley, & Emslie, 1994; Snowling, Chiat, & Hulme, 1991). A child's ability to repeat a novel word may be affected by any of the component skills involved in the process of hearing, encoding, and producing a word form: the ability to perceive speech distinctions; the preciseness, robustness, or organization of phonological and morphological representations; the ability to store the word form; and motor planning and articulation skills. The impairments of children with SLI may affect performance at any point or at many points in this process."

I concur. Task analysis suggests that, from a CHC factor analysis perspective, non-word repetition tasks may garner their diagnostic sensitivity from their factorial complexity (i.e., they measure multiple important abilities/constructs). These may include such Ga (auditory processing) narrow abilities as phonetic coding (PC), speech sound discrimination (US), memory for sound patterns (UM), and temporal tracking (UK). In addition, clearly the Gsm narrow ability of working memory (MW; what is often called the phonological working memory or articulatory loop) is implicated. Other CHC candidate abilities included efficacy of accessing a person's lexicon (aka; speed of lexical access or naming facility-Glr: NA). For users of the WJ-III battery [conflict of interest disclosure - I'm a coauthor], we have a test called Sound Awareness that has been found to be very predictive of academic achievement and diagnostic classification (normal vs some kind of disorder)...primarily, I believe, because it is a CHC ability-complex measure of multiple narrow abilities (at a minimum, PC and MW). Measures that are not factorially "pure" can still be important and useful for other assessment purposes - diagnosis and prediction.

I would encourage readers to continue to track the emerging non-word repetition practical and theoretical literature. Another important article to read is by Gathercole (2006). Also, I've previously blogged about a non-word repetition article in the journal Dyslexia that, IMHO, suffered from serious methodological flaws and should not be taken seriously. Finally, as my awareness of this literature has grown I recently ran a search of the IAP Reference Database for other articles that may be related (as you will see..there is no shortage of literature to read in this area).

Estes et al. (2007) Abstract

• Purpose: This study presents a meta-analysis of the difference in nonword repetition performance between children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). The authors investigated variability in the effect sizes (i.e., the magnitude of the difference between children with and without SLI) across studies and its relation to several factors: type of nonword repetition task, age of SLI sample, and nonword length. Method: The authors searched computerized databases and reference sections and requested unpublished data to find reports of nonword repetition tasks comparing children with and without SLI. Results: Children with SLI exhibited very large impairments in nonword repetition, performing an average (across 23 studies) of 1.27 standard deviations below children without SLI. A moderator analysis revealed that different versions of the nonword repetition task yielded significantly different effect sizes, indicating that the measures are not interchangeable. The second moderator analysis found no association between effect size and the age of children with SLI. Finally, an exploratory meta-analysis found that children with SLI displayed difficulty repeating even short nonwords, with greater difficulty for long nonwords. Conclusions: These findings have potential to affect how nonword repetition tasks are used and interpreted, and suggest several directions for future research.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, speech, language, nonword repetition, pseudowords, Ga, auditory processing, Gsm, working memory, phonological loop, Glr, naming facility, lexical access, specific language impairement, SLI.school psychology, special education, education, assessment, CHC theory, intelligence

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Auditory (Ga) processing fluency - CHC theory extension?

Time to unleash some of my recent musings/ruminations that have been incubating in my cortex.

Regular readers of either of my blogs (IQ's Corner; the IQ Brain Clock) should have noted my continued and increasing interest in contemporary research, often from diverse diverse professional sandboxes (e.g., music perception; neuroscience; cognitive psychology; biological psychology; etc.), regarding cognitive temporal processing and/or mental/interval time-keeping (my interest in these topics was recently reflected in posting of the the IQ Brain Clock EWOK).

Without getting into detail (space does not allow), some recent reading I've completed re: the work of Dr. Tallal (author of the Fast ForWord intervention program; note - as I've mentioned before, I've not yet reviewed the FF intervention research...I've been focusing exclusively on the substantive theoretical and empirical research re: the cognitive abilities that underlie the foundation for the FF intervention) has suggested, in my little cortex, possible links between her research on "temporalspectral acoustic speed" (also referred to, by Dr. Tallal, as rapid auditory processing; temporalspectral auditory processing speed; and/or acoustic speed) and the more general mental/interval time-keeping literature. [Click here, here, and here to view the primary Tallal articles I've been digesting]

Although I've not yet incorporated Dr. Tallal's research (as well as similar work done by others; e.g., Stefanatos et al. 2007 Neuropsychologia article on "rapid auditory gap detection") into the IQ Brain Clock EWOK (I will do so when I post the next revision), I have started the incorporation process in my personal knowledge base.

Sometime during this or next week I hope to post (over at the IQ Brain Clock blog) more of my thoughts regarding the cross-fertilization of Dr. Tallal's domain-specific (language and reading) "timing" research with the more domain-general mental/interval time-keeping/temporal processing research. I think they are related and complimentary lines of important research.

However, at this time I would like to toss out one of my thoughts to those interested in the CHC theory of cognitive abilities. In my 2005 Chapter in the Flanagan and Harrison Clinical Intellectual Assessment book (aka, the CIA book) (click here for on-line version of chapter), I attempted to update the factor structure of the human cognitive speed domains (Gs and Gt). I presented a preliminary structural model for consideration.

My recent musings have led me to speculate the the rapid auditory processing speed Dr. Tallal and others have been investigating might represent a speed/fluency factor in the CHC domain of Ga. As articulated in Carroll's seminal treatise, abilities within CHC ability domains can often be classified as either level or speed/rate/fluency abilities. For example, as noted in the proposed speed hierarchy in my 2005 chapter, speed of reasoning (RE) is a possible speed/fluency ability in the broad domain of fluid reasoning (Gf). Similarly, perceptual speed (P) is a rate/fluency aspect of visual-spatial processing (Gv). Another example would be number facility (N) as the rate/fluency aspect of quantitative knowledge (Gq).

My current thoughts, which are very preliminary, is that the acoustic/rapid auditory processing speed abilities investigated by Tallal et al. might be conceptualized as a rate/fluency ability in the CHC domain of auditory processing (Ga).

What do people think?

More thoughts will follow at the IQ Brain Clock.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, cognition, intelligence, Ga, auditory processing, acoustic speed, auditory processing speed, Fast ForWord, temporal processing, mental time keeping, interval timing, IQ Brain Clock, CHC theory, Cattell-Horn-Carroll, neuroscience

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Music training and sensitivity to speech sounds (Ga)

A forthcoming brief article in the April issue of Nature Neuroscience continues to support the connection between learning music and sensitivity to speech sounds (Ga), a skill important for early reading. Check out the press release as well as a copy of the article.

Technorati Tags: psychology, education, educational psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, music, Ga, auditory processing, speech sounds, reading, music training

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Rapid auditory speech "gap" detection and dyslexia and aphasia

Although not dealing with severe reading disabilities (dyslexia), an article (in Neuropsychologia) I just skimmed that dealt with rapid auditory speech "gap detection" in adult aphasics seems to be consistent with the "auditory temporal processing" research and theory of dyslexia. On March 1 I made a post re: an article that provided, IMHO, a very nice overview of the phonological processing and auditory temporal processing (ATP) research on dyslexia. This new article seems to be consistent with the ATP research.

For the loyal CHC theory readers of this blog, this research suggests that we are still learning of additional narrow Ga (auditory processing) abilities that may deserve a place in the CHC taxonomy.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, education, neuropsychology, dyslexia, reading, reading disabilities, LD, learning disabilities, speech, speech percption, aphasia, intelligence, Ga, auditory processing, auditory temporal processing, temporal processing

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Fast ForWord references

Over on the NASP listserv the following question regarding the efficacy of the Fast ForWord program was posed--- "Does anyone know of any peer-reviewed research (not research done themselves) on either of these programs: Fast ForWord or Earobics. We have a family wanting the school to purchase these programs and use them to remediate reading, executive functioning, and other processing deficits. Last I knew, these programs did not have evidence-based support other than their own research. I would like research regarding support or lack thereof? Thank you in advance."

I just ran a quick search of the IAP Procite Reference database and found the following articles that have the keywords Fast ForWord associated with them. I do not know if these are articles of research "other than their own evidence."

• Bishop, D. V. M., Adams, C. V., Rosen, S. (2006). Resistance of grammatical impairment to computerized comprehension training in children with specific and non-specific language impairments. International Journal of Language Communication Disorders, 41(1), 19-40.
• Gillam, R. B., Loeb, D. F., FrielPatti, S. (2001). Looking back: A summary of five exploratory studies of Fast ForWord. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 10(3), 269-273.
• Gillam, S. L., Gillam, R. B. (2006). Making evidence-based decisions about child language intervention in schools. Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 37(4), 304-315.
• Johnson, C. J. (2006). Getting started in evidence-based practice for childhood speech-language disorders. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 15(1), 20-35.
• Rouse, C. E., Krueger, A. B. (2004). Putting computerized instruction to the test: a randomized evaluation of a ''scientifically based'' reading program. Economics of Education Review, 23(4), 323-338.
• Valentine, D., Hedrick, M. S., Swanson, L. A. (2006). Effect of an auditory training program on reading, phoneme awareness, and language. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 103(1), 183-196.

Causes of specific language impairment - Guest post by Ruben Lopez

The following is a guest post by Ruben Lopez, school psychologist with the Moreno Valley Unified School District, CA and member of the IQs Corner Virtual Community of Scholars. Rueben reviewed the following article and has provided his comments below. Welcome aboard Ruben.

Bishop, D. V. M. (2006). What causes specific language impairment in children? Current Directions In Psychological Science, 15, 217-221. (click here to view)


Abstract

• Specific language impairment (SLI) is diagnosed when a child’s language development is deficient for no obvious reason. For many years, there was a tendency to assume that SLI was caused by factors such as poor parenting, subtle brain damage around the time of birth, or transient hearing loss. Subsequently it became clear that these factors were far less important than genes in determining risk for SLI. A quest to find “the gene for SLI” was undertaken, but it soon became apparent that no single cause could account for all cases. Furthermore, although fascinating cases of SLI caused by a single mutation have been discovered, in most children the disorder has a more complex basis, with several genetic and environmental risk factors interacting. The clearest evidence for genetic effects has come from studies that diagnosed SLI using theoretically motivated measures of underlying cognitive deficits rather than conventional clinical criteria.

Comments

• Clearly and concisely, Bishop explains how genetics and cognitive assessment may help to identify and intervene early in specific language impairment (SLI)-“a heterogenous category, varying in both severity and profile of disorder, but in most cases it is possible to demonstrate problems with both understanding and producing spoken language….”

• Regarding the genetics of SLI, although twin studies have yielded significant heritability estimates, ranging from .5 to .75, Bishop reports that in most families SLI is not “inherited in a simple fashion”, rather SLI “resembles complex genetic disorders, such as asthma and diabetes…” And in a rare family where 50% of the children had an affected parent and a specific chromosomal mutation has been found, the defective gene was not the hoped for gene for language, but rather appeared to regulate the activity of other genes, some affecting “many brain systems important for speech and language…” So a simplistic genetic model of SLI has shown to be inaccurate.

• Similarly, Bishop has found a simplistic diagnostic definition of SLI to be inaccurate. Using twin (genotype) studies to define a SLI phenotype (observed characteristics), she found “simply categorizing children as affected or unaffected on the basis of conventional language tests was not an effective approach to phenotype definition.” She, therefore, decided to look for “endophenotypes, measures of underlying factors thought to play a causal role in the disorder.” She defines this approach as “doing genetic analysis using experimental measures that were derived from particular theoretical accounts of SLI.”

• In her search for endophenotypes of SLI, Bishop found that “impaired nonword repetition” showed evidence of a “strong genetic influence.” Her theoretical explanation for selecting the nonword repetition task is that SLI is suspected of being caused by an “impairment in a system that is specialized for holding verbal material in memory for short periods of time-phonological short-term memory (STM).” She described the task as “asking children to repeat meaningless sequences of syllables, such as “perplisteronk” or “blonterstaping.”

• Yet testing the notion that SLI “can be traced to a more general deficit affecting perception of auditory input”(perhaps in CHC terms attributing SLI to broad Ga rather than to narrow Ga processes) Bishop found that “a measure of nonverbal auditory perception (identification of tone sequences) did not prove to have a significant genetic influence. She added that she found that “the effect of shared environment on the tone-sequence task accounted for about 60% of the variance, but almost half of this effect could be accounted for by a measure of the amount of live music experienced at home.”

• Also, she found a measure of children’s ability to add appropriate inflectional endings to verbs (grammar)-a measure which Bishop described as another measure of phonological STM, a description which does not fit John Carroll’s placement of a narrow Grammatical Sensitivity factor under Gc. Based on her endophenotype approach-combining genetics with psychometrics--Bishop described a dual deficit model of SLI, consisting of a deficit in both nonword repetition and grammatic sensitivity. Regarding the unique contribution of each measure to an endophenotype of SLI, Bishop wrote, “Both impairments were found in SLI, and both were heritable, yet they were only weakly correlated, and the genetic analysis suggested that different genes were implicated in the two deficits.”

• Based on the two-deficit model of SLI, Bishop concluded that “…it seems as though a child has to be impaired in more than one domain in order for language to be seriously impaired”, leading to the optimistic hypothesis that “Language is unusually surprisingly robust in the face of adverse developmental circumstances. This suggests that there may be multiple routes to effective language acquisition, and if one route is blocked, another can usually be found.”

• Regarding intervention, Bishop speculates that “multiple routes to effective language acquisition” mean that “…there is every reason to suppose that ways of modifying the course of the disorder may be discovered, especially if new genetic knowledge is used to identify children at risk early so that intervention can begin at a young age.”

• One question I have regarding Bishop’s psychometric findings is whether they indicate that we should be careful in only considering or overemphasizing the Broad CHC factors in understanding and addressing categories of disability, such as specific language impairment?

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, speech, language, specific language impairment, SLI, genetics, CHC theory, Gsm, Ga, working memory

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Journal awareness - Lang Speech & Hearing Services in Schools

FYI. The professional literature in speech/language is increasing paying attention to Ga (auditory processing)-related disorders. In this case it is the journal - Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools. If you are a school psychologist you might want to visit with your speech/language colleagues re: the ability to borrow this journal with regularity.

If you visit the link above, you can view abstracts for past issues (current issue # 4 not yet posted) even if you are not an ASHA member. On-line copies of the full articles require ASHA membership


Record 1 of 8
Authors TP Hogan, HW Catts, TD Little
Title The relationship between phonological awareness and reading: Implications for the assessment of phonological awareness
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 285-293

Record 2 of 8
Authors D Sutherland, GT Gillon
Title Assessment of phonological representations in children with speech impairment
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 294-307

Record 3 of 8
Authors GT Gillon
Title Facilitating phoneme awareness development in 3-and 4-year-old children with speech impairment
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 308-324

Record 4 of 8
Authors A Nancollis, BA Lawrie, B Dodd
Title Phonological awareness intervention and the acquisition of literacy skills in children from deprived social backgrounds
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 325-335

Record 5 of 8
Authors TJ Swanson, BW Hodson, M SchommerAikins
Title An examination of phonological awareness treatment outcomes for seventh-grade poor readers from a bilingual community
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 336-345

Record 6 of 8
Authors BA Goldstein
Title From the editor
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 279

Record 7 of 8
Authors GT Gillon
Title Prologue - Phonological awareness: Evidence to influence assessment and intervention practices
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 281-284

Record 8 of 8
Authors GT Gillon
Title Clinical Forum - Epilogue - Phonological awareness: Effecting change through the integration of research findings
Full source Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 2005, Vol 36, Iss 4, pp 346-349