ǂThe ǂproduction and comprehension of pronouns and verb inflections by Italian children with ASD

ǂa ǂnew dataset in a pro-drop language

Greta Mazzaggio (Author), Aaron Shield (Author)

Abstract

Pronoun difficulties have long been a key feature in defining autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Most studies to-date have been conducted in English. Italian is a language in which subject pronouns are optional but verbs obligatorily exhibit person-referencing morphology. This study is the first to investigate the pronominal abilities of Italian children with ASD. We tested 26 Italian children with ASD and 35 typically developing (TD) children, matched for syntactic abilities. Pronouns were elicited in focus position and in conjunction with a verb. Children’s theory of mind, nonverbal intelligence, lexical knowledge, and pronoun comprehension were also tested. TD children produced the correct forms of 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd person pronouns significantly more often than the children with ASD, who were more likely to produce their own name rather than a pronoun. Children with ASD omitted optional subject pronouns significantly less often than TD children. Our data suggest that Italian children with ASD are generally able to acquire and use pronominal forms, but struggle with understanding when and where to use them appropriately, pointing to underlying challenges with pragmatics.

Keywords

pronouns;pronoun reversal;autism developmental disorders;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2021
Typology:	1.12 - Published Scientific Conference Contribution Abstract
Organization:	UNG - University of Nova Gorica
UDC:	81'27
COBISS:	77374979
Views:	1025
Downloads:	38
Average score:	0 (0 votes)
Metadata:

Other data

URN:	URN:SI:UNG
Pages:	[1] str.
ID:	13377318