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Comparison Of Spontaneously Elicited Language Patterns In Specific Language Impairment And High Functioning Autism
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Book Synopsis Comparison of Spontaneously Elicited Language Patterns in Specific Language Impairment and High-functioning Autism by : Megan Craig
Download or read book Comparison of Spontaneously Elicited Language Patterns in Specific Language Impairment and High-functioning Autism written by Megan Craig and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Background: we aimed to characterize differneces in the use of language in children with specific language impairment and high-functioning autism by analyzing verbal responses on standardized tests. The overall goal was to provide clinicians with additional tools with which to aid in distinguishing the two neurodevelopmental disorders. Materials and methods: this study included 16 children with specific language impairment, 28 children with high-functioning autism, and 52 typically developing participants between the ages of six and 14. Groups were matched for age, and specific language impairment and high-functioning autism groups were matched on verbal and performance IQ. Responses from standardized tests were examined for response length, grammatical errors, filler words, perserverations, revisions (repeated attempts to begin or continue a sentence), off-topic attention shifts (lapses in attention to the task), and rambling. Data were analyzed using parametric and nonparametric methods. Results: specific language impairment responses were longer and contained more filler words than did those of the other two groups, whereas high-functioning autism responses exhibited more grammatical erros, off-topic attention shifts, and rambling. Specific language impairment and high-functioning autism responses showed higher rates of perserveration compared with controls. There were no significant differences in revisions among the three groups. Conclusions: differences in language patterns of participants with specific language impairment and high-functioning autism may be useful to the clinician in helping to differentiate isolated language impairment from high-functioning autism. The results also support the conclusion that the two conditions are separable, and each exhibits a different pattern of language dysfunction
Book Synopsis Innovative Investigations of Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder by : Letitia Naigles
Download or read book Innovative Investigations of Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder written by Letitia Naigles and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-11-07 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, a growing number of children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition characterized by, among other features, social interaction deficits and language impairment. Yet the precise nature of the disorder’s impact on language development is not well understood, in part because of the language variability among children across the autism spectrum. The contributors to this volume — experts in fields ranging from communication disorders to developmental and clinical psychology to linguistics — use innovative techniques to address two broad questions: Is the variability of language development and use in children with ASD a function of the language, such that some linguistic domains are more vulnerable to ASD than others? Or is the variability a function of the individual, such that some characteristics predispose those with ASD to have varying levels of difficulty with language development and use? Contributors investigate these questions across linguistic levels, from lexical semantics and single-clause syntax, to computationally complex phonology and the syntax-pragmatics interface. Authors address both spoken and written domains within the wider context of language acquisition. This timely and broadly accessible volume will be of interest to a broad range of specialists, including linguists, psychologists, sociologists, behavioral neurologists, and cognitive neuroscientists.
Book Synopsis Comparing the Oral Language Abilities of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Specific Language Impairment Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) by : Cecile Malan
Download or read book Comparing the Oral Language Abilities of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Specific Language Impairment Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) written by Cecile Malan and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the adoption of the DSM-5, there appears to be a shift of focus away from the expressive language difficulties of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to their social communication difficulties only. A significant body of research, on the other hand, has revealed that many children with ASD present with language impairment similar to that found in children with specific language impairment (SLI). It appears that a comprehensive test such as the CASL has not been used to investigate the differences in language impairment in children with ASD and SLI. The aim of the present study was to compare the oral language abilities of children in middle childhood with ASD (n=11) and SLI (n=12) to the corresponding abilities of a matched control group of children with typical development (TD) (n=12). All participants were EAL learners and came from bilingual or multilingual backgrounds. The group with ASD were high functioning. Lexical semantic, syntactic, supralinguistic, and pragmatic abilities were investigated using the CASL. A standard-group comparison design was used and participants were purposively assigned to the three groups (ASD, SLI, and TD). Differences in language scores were determined using analysis of variance and Tukey’s test. Results showed no significant differences between the participants with ASD and SLI for lexical semantic, syntactic, and supralinguistic abilities, but significant differences were evident when their results were compared to those of the TD participants. Great variability was seen in the language abilities of participants with ASD and SLI with the majority scoring one or more standard deviations below the mean of the CASL. Mean scores for pragmatics for the three participant groups differed significantly, with ASD
Book Synopsis Language development in children with autism spectrum disorders by : Oliver Selzer
Download or read book Language development in children with autism spectrum disorders written by Oliver Selzer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2013-01-15 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Pedagogy - Pedagogic Psychology, grade: 2,0, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: The development or acquisition of language separates the human being from any other mammal, enabling him to efficiently communicate and socialize with every other member of the same race. Thus, acquiring and developing this form of communication is crucial not only for means of transporting meaning itself, but for ensuring the human race to exist. Under normal circumstances every child can acquire every existing language, depending on it’s surrounding (cf. chapter two). Normal circumstances imply medical, cognitive and social parameters; if these three determining factors play together typically, a child may acquire a language in a stage-like order. In each stage, fundamental elements (or rules) of language are being learned (e.g. phonology, morphology, prosody etc.). In case of an autism spectrum disorder, one or more of the three determining factors is deficient – hence the acquisition of language deviates from its typical course. As will be described in chapter one, the actual type of autism plays a pivotal role in how problems in language acquisition will manifest: e.g., children with Asperger syndrome or some other type of high-functioning autism will be more likely to have problems in Pragmatics, whereas children with low-functioning type of autism may be challenged with producing language at all. Hence in this paper, I will examine this deviant development by looking closely into the fundamental rules of language in “typical” and autistic learners. I will introduce very basic knowledge on medical, cognitive and social impairments autism spectrum disorders may consist of; then, the above mentioned comparison of fields of language will be conducted. Chapter four will conclude with prospects on therapeutics and teaching, introducing concepts and constructing possible classroom intervention.
Book Synopsis Investigating Grammar in Autism Spectrum Disorders by : Anna Gavarró
Download or read book Investigating Grammar in Autism Spectrum Disorders written by Anna Gavarró and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD hereafter) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by deficits in communicative and social skills. The vast majority of research on language in ASD has focused on pragmatic difficulties, while less is known about structural aspects of language in this population. Work on syntax and phonology is not only sparse, but the heterogeneity in these grammatical domains has moreover led to conflicting reports that they are either intact or impaired. More remains to be understood about variations in grammatical profiles in ASD, as well as the relation of grammar to other cognitive abilities. The body of research gathered here increases our understanding of the grammatical strengths and weaknesses in ASD. The contributions carefully elucidate the relations between grammar and other areas of cognition, as well as unveil the similarities and differences of grammar in ASD compared to other conditions. The result is a volume that provides new ways to think about language and communication in ASD, and beyond, which should be of interest to both linguists and clinicians.
Book Synopsis Language-impaired Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Children with Specific Language Impairment by : Hanady Bani Hani
Download or read book Language-impaired Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Children with Specific Language Impairment written by Hanady Bani Hani and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There is a long-standing debate in the literature about the extent of overlap between the language phenotype of the subgroup of children with ASD who have language impairment (language-impaired children with ASD) and children with specific-language impairment (SLI), as well as whether or not their language impairments arise from the same etiology (e.g., Kjelgaard & Tager-Flusberg, 2001; Leyfer, Tager-Flusberg, Dowd, Tomblin, & Folstein, 2008; Whitehouse, Barry, & Bishop, 2008; Williams, Botting, & Boucher, 2008). Procedural and declarative memory systems have been proposed to play a major role in typical language development, and have been hypothesized to contribute to language impairment in ASD (Romero-Munguía, 2008; Ullman, 2004) as well as in SLI (Ullman & Pierpont, 2005). Specifically, procedural memory involves learning and storing regularities and rule-based information such as those found in aspects of phonology and grammar. Declarative memory, which involves the learning and storing of facts and events, binds together the conceptual, phonological, and semantic representations of words (Ullman, 2004). The goal of this dissertation is to compare combined language and memory profiles in language-impaired ASD and in SLI, contributing novel evidence to the overlap debate, as well as insight into possible mechanisms of language impairment and targets for intervention. This is the first direct comparison of language (i.e., phonology and vocabulary) and memory abilities (i.e., procedural memory using a simple visual sequence-learning task and declarative memory using intra- and cross-modality visual recognition tasks) in language-impaired children with ASD and children with SLI, as well as their age- and nonverbal intelligence-matched typically-developing (TD) peers. In addition, I explored potential relationships between procedural memory and phonology, declarative memory and vocabulary, and both memory systems and sentence repetition. Results indicated distinct profiles in ASD vs. SLI: despite similar language difficulties in both clinical groups, the ASD group showed significantly poorer performance on procedural and declarative memory tasks, whereas the SLI group showed reductions only on a more challenging measure of declarative memory (e.g., cross-modality recognition). A trend toward a positive relationship was found between declarative memory and different measures of vocabulary in the ASD and SLI groups. These findings add to the evidence of distinct phenotypes in language-impaired ASD and SLI, despite similarities in structural language (Whitehouse et al., 2008; Williams et al., 2008). If the current findings are replicated, they may support different methods of language intervention for children with ASD and children with SLI related to their distinct memory profiles." --
Book Synopsis Autism Spectrum Disorders by : David Amaral
Download or read book Autism Spectrum Disorders written by David Amaral and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-01 with total page 1445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autism is an emerging area of basic and clinical research, and has only recently been recognized as a major topic in biomedical research. Approximately 1 in 150 children are diagnosed as autistic, so it is also an intense growth area in behavioral and educational treatments. Financial resources have begun to be raised for more comprehensive research and an increasing number of scientists are becoming involved in autism research. In many respects, autism has become a model for conducting translational research on a psychiatric disorder. This text provides a comprehensive summary of all current knowledge related to the behavioral, experiential, and biomedical features of the autism spectrum disorders including major behavioral and cognitive syndromology, common co-morbid conditions, neuropathology, neuroimmunology, and other neurological correlates such as seizures, allergy and immunology, gastroenterology, infectious disease, and epidemiology. Edited by three leading researchers, this volume contains over 80 chapters and nine shorter commentaries by thought leaders in the field, making the book a virtual "who's who" of autism research. This carefully developed book is a comprehensive and authoritative reference for what we know in this area as well as a guidepost for the next several years in all areas of autism research.
Book Synopsis Understanding Autism by : Steven O. Moldin
Download or read book Understanding Autism written by Steven O. Moldin and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2006-04-25 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an all-inclusive look at the subject, Understanding Autism: From Basic Neuroscience to Treatment reviews state-of-the-art research on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of autism. The book addresses potential mechanisms that may underlie the development of autism and the neural systems that are likely to be affected by these molecular,
Book Synopsis Children with Specific Language Impairment by : Laurence B. Leonard
Download or read book Children with Specific Language Impairment written by Laurence B. Leonard and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children with Specific Language Impairment covers all aspects of SLI, including its history, possible genetic and neurobiological origins, and clinical and educational practice.
Book Synopsis The Structural Language Skills of Preschool Aged Children with Autism by : Carlie Jane Park
Download or read book The Structural Language Skills of Preschool Aged Children with Autism written by Carlie Jane Park and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this thesis was to explore the structural language skills of preschool aged children with autism. Autism is a Pervasive Developmental Disorder defined by impairments in social interaction and communication, and restrictive and repetitive behaviours (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Structural language skills were identified as an important area for investigation as the delay or absence of language development is an important diagnostic and clinical feature of autism. For example, approximately 50% of young people with autism never develop functional language skills (Howlin, 2005; Tager-Flusberg, Paul, & Lord, 2005), and for the 25% to 30% of the population with autism who develop fully fluent language skills (Minshew, Goldstein, & Siegel, 1995), the majority have ongoing difficulties in using their language skills within a social context (Bartak, Rutter, & Cox, 1975; Rice, Warren, & Betz, 2005; Tonge & Rinehart, 2007). In the long term, the development of some functional language by the age of five is one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes in adulthood (Howlin, 2005; Pierce & Bartolucci, 1977; Rutter, 1978; Tager-Flusberg, 2000). Despite the importance of language development for a child with autism and their families, relatively little is known about the structural language skills of children with autism.The first chapter of this thesis presents a thorough review of the literature on the language skills of children with autism with the aim of identifying areas requiring further investigation. It was found that previous research on the language skills of children with autism has tended to focus on pragmatic deficits and/or functional language skills with relatively fewer studies investigating structural language skills. Research has been particularly lacking in the area of morphology and syntax in autism with the majority of the literature being over 20 years old and thus requiring replication with current diagnostic criteria and assessment tools. Other weaknesses of this literature are the use of inconsistent methodologies, the investigation of a narrow range of linguistic skills, a lack of studies investigating language skills at specific developmental stages, and the exclusion of children with autism with an intellectual disability and/or those with poor expressive language skills, and females with autism. Partly as a result of these limitations, and also due to the heterogeneity of language presentation within the population with autism, we do not yet have a clear description of the profile of structural language skills in autism, and how these skills might relate to other areas of functioning. To address the limitations of the previous literature, the current research aimed to investigate a range of different language skills within a group of preschool aged children with autism and comparison groups of children with specific language impairment, developmental delay without autism, and typically developing children. Children with autism were selected for the study who were both high functioning and had developmental delay. Participants were aged from 3.5 to 6 years. Three studies were conducted which have been presented in chapters 3 to 5 as submitted journal papers.The first study investigated the profile of language strengths and weaknesses in preschool aged children with autism. This included an investigation of whether the language profile which presents in autism is specific and unique to that disorder and whether there are differences in this language profile across gender and intellectual functioning. Participants were 63 children who had high functioning autism (n=17), autism with developmental delay (n=10), developmental delay without autism (n=10), typical development (n=20), and specific language impairment (n=6). They were administered a series of standardised tests of structural language skills. It was found that the group with high functioning autism had a unique profile of language skills compared to the other groups; a relative (but not absolute) strength in expressive vocabulary skills compared to receptive vocabulary skills. This strength was not shared by children with autism with an intellectual disability, and no gender differences in language profiles were found.The second study investigated whether children with autism have atypical development of morphological and syntactic skills, including whether they use rote learning to compensate for impaired morphological processing, and acquire grammatical morphemes in an atypical order. Participants were children who had autism (n=17), developmental delay without autism (n=7), and typically developing children (n=19). Speech samples were obtained from participants during the administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, and transcripts were coded using the Index of Productive Syntax and for usage of Brown's (1973) Grammatical Morphemes. Participants were also administered an elicitation task requiring the application of inflections to non-words; the Wugs Task. The main finding of this study was that across both morphological and syntactic skills, children with autism have subskills which are a combination of intact, delayed, and atypical. The third study investigated the relationship between structural and functional language skills, autism symptom severity, adaptive behaviour, and emotional and behavioural problems in preschoolers with autism. Participants were children with autism (n=27), and two comparison groups of children with developmental delay without autism (n=12), and typically developing children (n=20). The participants were administered standardised tests of structural language skills and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Parents completed the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales and the Developmental Behaviour Checklist. Results indicated that for children with autism, functional language skills were associated with structural language, social and daily living skills, and some behavioural problems, but not autism symptom severity. There was some evidence that structural language skills were associated with social skills for children with autism, but not with daily living skills, emotional and behavioural problems or autism symptom severity. The majority of these associations were not found to be specific to autism. The results of this study suggest that it is important to consider the structural language skills of children with autism, and to develop specific interventions to address difficulties in this area. The discussion chapter discusses the clinical implications and future research directions generated by this research, and the limitations of the research. The findings of these three studies highlighted that preschool aged children with autism have a complex developmental profile of structural language skills with a mixture of intact, delayed and atypical skills. The findings also highlighted that structural language skills develop somewhat separately to the core symptoms of autism and behavioural problems. Collectively these findings suggested that clinicians need to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the structural language skills of children with autism and not make assumptions about their language skills based on behavioural presentation. Furthermore, in order to maximise language development in the preschool years, structural language interventions need to be tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of each individual child with autism. The main limitation of this research was small sample sizes for the lower functioning groups. This limitation was address by combining or removing groups for specific analyses, and higher the need for replication with larger samples where warranted. Future research directions include investigating whether echolalia may create a relative strength in expressive vocabulary skills for children with high functioning autism, and further investigation of the pattern of strengths and weaknesses found in morphology and syntactic skills for preschool aged children with autism. This research has been able to add to our understanding of the nature of structural language skills in preschool aged children with autism and provide information to assist clinicians to maximise language development, thereby optimising outcomes for individuals with autism in their adult years.
Book Synopsis Language, Learning, and Behavior Disorders by : Joseph H. Beitchman
Download or read book Language, Learning, and Behavior Disorders written by Joseph H. Beitchman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-06-13 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language as a connecting bridge between learning disability and psychiatric disorder is the unifying theme of this wide-ranging book. Particular prominence is given to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia and autistic disorder. Explanations for the comorbidity of psychiatric and language disorder are sought in developmental, cognitive and biological fields, the contribution of imaging modalities is considered and implications for aetiology, treatment and rehabilitation are explored. Topical issues such as syndrome definition in dyslexia, acquired memory disorder in childhood and biology-behaviour correspondence are well covered, as are a range of treatment options. A final section is devoted to outcome studies. Enlivened with case vignettes, and offering insights into the range of current thinking on language and behaviour, this book is a rich resource for professionals and advanced students concerned with child health and development, offering ideas for a unified view of language, learning and behaviour problems.
Book Synopsis Syntax and the Lexicon by : Timothy Angus Stowell
Download or read book Syntax and the Lexicon written by Timothy Angus Stowell and published by Brill. This book was released on 1992 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a dynamic investigation into the role of the lexicon in syntactic theory, this book provides an insightful overview and introduction to lexical theory. It discusses the nature of argument and structure and debates the relation of argument nature to constituent structure and binding theory.
Book Synopsis Speech Motor Control by : Ben Maassen
Download or read book Speech Motor Control written by Ben Maassen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the latest theoretical developments in the area of speech motor control, offering new insights by leading scientists and clinicians into speech disorders. The scope of this book is broad, presenting research in the areas of modelling, genetics, brain imaging, behavioral experimentation, and clinical applications.
Book Synopsis Issues in Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice: 2011 Edition by :
Download or read book Issues in Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice: 2011 Edition written by and published by ScholarlyEditions. This book was released on 2012-01-09 with total page 1283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues in Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice. The editors have built Issues in Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Otorholaryngology, Audiology, and Speech Pathology Research and Practice: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.
Book Synopsis Speech and Language Impairments in Children by : Dorothy V.M Bishop
Download or read book Speech and Language Impairments in Children written by Dorothy V.M Bishop and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Delayed development of speech and/or language is one of the commonest reasons for parents of preschool children to seek the advice of a paediatrician. Accessible to non-academic Speech and Language Impairments provides an overview of recent research developments in specific speech and language impairments, written by experts in the field. Topics include normal and disordered development of problems , crosslinguistic studies, pragmatic language impairments, early identification, educational and psychiatric outcomes, acquired epileptic aphasia and experimental studies of remediation. The book concludes with a chapter by Michael Rutter that gives guidelines for conducting and evaluating research in this field.
Book Synopsis A Comparative Study of Autism and Specific Language Impairment by :
Download or read book A Comparative Study of Autism and Specific Language Impairment written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis An Investigation of Language Abilities in Individuals with High-functioning Autism and Asperger's Disorder by : Samantha Jane Speirs
Download or read book An Investigation of Language Abilities in Individuals with High-functioning Autism and Asperger's Disorder written by Samantha Jane Speirs and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autism and Asperger's disorder are complex neurodevelopmental disorders that share many clinical deficits in social, language, motor and behvioural symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; World Health Organization, 1992). Current diagnostic criteria differentiate the disorders on the basis of the presence (autism) or absence (Asperger's disorder) of significant language delays prior to 3 years of age. There has been an ongoing debate regarding whether autism and Aspergers disorder (AD) are variants of a single condition, or should be considered as two distinct conditions with own set of symptoms (e.g. Allred, 2009; Bennett et al., 2008; Dickerson Mayes & Calhoun, 2001; Dickerson Mayes, Calhoun, & Crites, 2001; Howlin, 2003; Kamp-Becker et al., 2010; Macintosh & Dissanayake, 2004; Sanders, 2009; Volkmar, State, & Klin, 2009; Witwer & Lecavalier, 2008). In the absence of objective clinical markers to distinguish between the disorders, the next revision of the DSM (DSM 5) to be officially released in May 2013 will merge autism and AD into a single autism spectrum disorder (ASD) category. What is not in dispute is there are a sub-group of children with a diagnosis of ASD with significant language delays and another sub-group who do not have early language delays. The impact of these early language delays on the trajectory of language development is not yet properly understood, particularly whether these children do in fact recover and 'catch up' on language functions. Therefore, ongoing research is needed to further understand the language trajectories of children with ASD with and without early language delays.This body of work addressed whether the impact these early language delays manifest in language function later in development. In so doing, it also addresses whether the manifestation of early delays on later language function differentiates between individuals with HFA and AD. Further, this body of work also addressed whether any delays or deficits found in language function were specific to the language domain, or is a consequence of a more general cognitive delay or dysfunction. On-line paradigms from the domains of psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology were utilized to directly examine the lexical, conceptual and general information processing capacities of individuals with HFA and AD, the first study to introduce psycholinguistics to the ASD population.Chapter 3 examined the automatic lexical processing system. The results indicated that individuals with AD exhibited an intact and automatic lexical processing system that relied on finely-tuned orthographic processes in word recognition. However, findings regarding the lexical processing system in individuals with HFA were ambiguous; there was less reliance on orthographic representation to recognize written words, which suggests the lexical processing system is either delayed or structurally different in HFA. Chapter 4 investigated the nature of the lexical processing impairments specific to HFA observed in Chapter 3 by examining the organization and specificity of the lexical processing system. This experiment confirmed that while the lexical processing system was appropriately developed (specific) in individuals with AD, lexical processes were less developed (less specific) in individuals with HFA, with the lexical processes either not yet developed or atypically tuned in some autistic individuals. Taken together, the findings from Chapters 3 and 4 indicated the differences in one of the fundamental language functions, the lexical processing system, existed between individuals with HFA and AD and was evident later in development. Chapter 5 investigated whether distinctions between HFA and AD also extend to the conceptual memory system. The findings indicated that the conceptual memory processes for both disorders was consistent with conceptual memory processes observed in typically developing populations, and there were no differences between individuals with HFA and AD. Chapter 6 employed a novel visual information processing task, the Subtle Cognitive Impairment Test (SCIT), to examine the speed and effectiveness (efficiency) of information processes in HFA and AD. The findings indicated there were no differences between the HFA and AD groups concerning the efficiency of general information processing. However, a sub-group of individuals with ASD, unrelated to the autism/ Asperger's disorder distinction, exhibited significant processing impairments, whilst another sub-group demonstrated information processing efficiency that was indistinguishable from that observed in typically developing individuals.A summary of overall findings across lexical, conceptual and general information processing systems revealed HFA and AD can be differentiated by fundamental differences in the lexical processing system, with no diagnostic differences regarding the conceptual processing system or information processing efficiency. Thus, language delays do distinguish HFA from AD, even later in development. Moreover, this is consistent with current diagnostic criteria differentiating HFA and AD on the basis of early language delays. These findings may have important outcomes on developing specific and comprehensive treatments for individuals with ASD.
