Comprehension of prosodically and syntactically marked focus in Cantonese-speaking children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder

Ge, H., Liu, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7776-0222, Yuen, H. K., Chen, A. and Yip, V. (2023) Comprehension of prosodically and syntactically marked focus in Cantonese-speaking children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 53 (3). pp. 1255-1268. ISSN 0162-3257 doi: 10.1007/s10803-022-05770-1

Abstract/Summary

This study investigated the comprehension of prosodically and syntactically marked focus by 5- to 8-year-old Cantonese-speaking children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Children listened to question-answer dialogues while looking at pictures depicting the scenarios, and judged whether the answers were correct responses to the questions. The results showed that children with ASD exhibited typically developing (TD)-like performance in the use of syntactic cues to understand focus, although they were significantly slower than their TD peers. However, children with ASD had more difficulties than their TD peers in utilizing prosodic cues in focus comprehension. These findings suggest that the comprehension difficulties found in children with ASD are domain-selective, and children with ASD are sensitive to language-specific focus marking strategies.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/107454
Identification Number/DOI	10.1007/s10803-022-05770-1
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary centres and themes > ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) Research Network Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Development Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Language and Cognition
Publisher	Springer
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