ABSTRACT
In this article, we leverage theoretical insights and methodological guidelines of discourse analytic scholarship to re-examine language phenomena typically associated with autism. Through empirical analysis of the verbal behavior of three children with autism, we engage the question of how prototypical features of autistic language-notably pronoun atypicality, pragmatic deficit, and echolalia-might conceal competencies and interactional processes that are largely invisible in mainstream research. Our findings offer a complex picture of children with autism in their use of language to communicate, interact and experience others. Such a picture also deepens our understanding of the interactional underpinnings of autistic children's speech. Finally, we describe how our findings offer fruitful suggestions for clinical intervention.
Subject(s)
Autistic Disorder/psychology , Communication , Echolalia/psychology , Language , Verbal Behavior , Autistic Disorder/complications , Child , Echolalia/complications , Female , Humans , Male , Social SkillsABSTRACT
In this article, we invite a rethinking of traditional perspectives of language in autism. We advocate a theoretical reappraisal that offers a corrective to the dominant and largely tacitly held view that language, in its essence, is a referential system and a reflection of the individual's cognition. Drawing on scholarship in Conversation Analysis and linguistic anthropology, we present a multidimensional view of language, showing how it also functions as interactional accomplishment, social action, and mode of experience. From such a multidimensional perspective, we revisit data presented by other researchers that include instances of prototypical features of autistic speech, giving them a somewhat different-at times complementary, at times alternative-interpretation. In doing so, we demonstrate that there is much at stake in the view of language that we as researchers bring to our analysis of autistic speech. Ultimately, we argue that adopting a multidimensional view of language has wide ranging implications, deepening our understanding of autism's core features and developmental trajectory.
Subject(s)
Autistic Disorder/physiopathology , Language Development Disorders/physiopathology , Anthropology , Communication , Echolalia/physiopathology , Humans , Language Disorders/physiopathology , LinguisticsABSTRACT
UNLABELLED: The cognitive problems that children formulate and solve in their daily lives necessarily take form in a cultural context. We review and illustrate two dominant approaches to study relations between cultural context and cognitive development, and we point to the limitations and affordances of each. Using a dichotomous approach, scholars employ a methodology that sharply differentiates cognition from cultural context, treating elements of cultural context as independent variables and elements of cognition as dependent variables. The approach often leads to propositions about transcultural features of context that influence the cognitive development of individuals. In contrast, using an intrinsic relations approach, researchers create units of analysis that capture relations between cognition and cultural context, investigating their mutual grounding in daily activities. We also review a small but important body of research that extends these approaches to diachronic analysis. This research seeks to understand shifting relations between cultural context and cognitive development over historical time. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:447-461. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1300 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.
