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Hemispheric lateralization of language in autistic and aphasic children

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Abstract

The profound language deficit in early infantile autism has led to speculation about the similarities between autistic and language-impaired children. Since aphasia in adults and many children is typically the result of left cerebral hemisphere damage, some researchers have suggested that autistic children also suffer from left hemisphere damage. So far, only indirect or unreliable evidence has been offered in support of this hypothesis. In the present experiment, autistic, language-impaired, and non-language-impaired children were compared on a dichotic listening task designed to overcome some of the deficiencies of earlier research. Language-impaired children were found to exhibit a left ear bias for language material (indicating right hemisphere lateralization for language), whereas the autistic and non-language-impaired children showed the opposite, right ear bias. As the autistic children showed a pattern similar to that of normal children, the present experiment found no evidence for either left hemisphere damage or aphasiclike performance among autistic children. The implications of these findings for understanding the autistic language deficit are explored.

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Reference note

  1. Day, R. S., Cutting, J., & Copeland, P.Perception of linguistic and nonlinguistic dimensions of dichotic stimuli, Paper presented at the 12th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, November 1971.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4067, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Gail Arnold & Steven Schwartz

Authors
  1. Gail Arnold
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  2. Steven Schwartz
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Additional information

The assistance of Mansil Robertson, Wendy Griffith, and Carol Pavey in organizing the children for this study is gratefully acknowledged. The research was supported by grants from the Educational Research and Development Committee and the Australian Research Grants Committee.

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Arnold, G., Schwartz, S. Hemispheric lateralization of language in autistic and aphasic children. J Autism Dev Disord 13, 129–139 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01531814

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