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Is the Linguistic Content of Speech Less Salient than its Perceptual Features in Autism?

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Abstract

Open-ended tasks are rarely used to investigate cognition in autism. No known studies have directly examined whether increased attention to the perceptual level of speech in autism might contribute to a reduced tendency to process language meaningfully. The present study investigated linguistic versus perceptual speech processing preferences. Children with autism and controls were tested on a quasi-open-format paradigm, in which speech stimuli contained competing linguistic and perceptual information, and could be processed at either level. Relative to controls, children with autism exhibited superior perceptual processing of speech. However, whilst their tendency to preferentially process linguistic rather than perceptual information was weaker than that of controls, it was nevertheless their primary processing mode. Implications for language acquisition in autism are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was submitted in partial fulfilment of a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of London by the first author. A part of this work was presented at the University College London’s Centre for Human Communication Inaugural Conference on the Architecture of the Language Faculty in London, UK, in June 2004, and at the BPS Developmental Psychology Section Conference in Leeds, UK, In September 2004. Dr. Heaton’s work is supported by EU grant (12984) Stages in the Evolution and Development of Sign Use (SEDSU). We would like to express our warmest thanks to all the children who participated in this study, and their parents and teachers, for kind co-operation.

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  1. Anna Järvinen-Pasley

    Present address: Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037-1099, USA

  2. John Pasley

    Present address: University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK

    Anna Järvinen-Pasley & Pamela Heaton

  2. Imperial College London, University of London, London, UK

    John Pasley

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  1. Anna Järvinen-Pasley
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Correspondence to Anna Järvinen-Pasley.

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Järvinen-Pasley, A., Pasley, J. & Heaton, P. Is the Linguistic Content of Speech Less Salient than its Perceptual Features in Autism?. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 239–248 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0386-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0386-0

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