Production and comprehension of French wh-questions by children with autism spectrum disorder: A comparative study with specific language impairment

• PHILIPPE PRÉVOST ^[1] ; LAURICE TULLER ^[1] ; MARIE ANNE BARTHEZ ^[2] ; JOËLLE MALVY ^[1] ; FRÉDÉRIQUE BONNET-BRILHAULT ^[1]
  1. [1] Université François Rabelais de Tours
  2. [2] Tours Regional University Hospital Center
• Localización: Applied psycholinguistics, ISSN 0142-7164, Vol. 38, Nº 5, 2017, págs. 1095-1131
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1017/s0142716417000078
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• Resumen

  • The nature of structural language difficulties in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was explored in a comparative study with specific language impairment (SLI) through investigation of the frequently reported ASD weakness in receptive skills relative to expressive skills. Twenty French-speaking children with ASD aged 6 to 12 were compared to age-matched children with SLI on production and comprehension of wh-questions. The two groups displayed similar effects of the complexity of the different wh-strategies. In the ASD group (as in the SLI group), these effects were not greater in comprehension compared to production; moreover, nonverbal ability (which varied from normal to impaired) was not related to language performance. Observed ASD-SLI differences are argued to largely be due to ASD pragmatic deficits, rather than to a qualitative difference in structural language skills.