Lexical Characteristics of Expressive Vocabulary in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Overview

Journal J Speech Lang Hear Res

Date 2014 Apr 2

PMID 24687027

Citations 9

Authors

Sara T Kover

Susan Ellis Weismer

Affiliations

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Abstract

Purpose: Vocabulary is a domain of particular challenge for many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Recent research has drawn attention to ways in which lexical characteristics relate to vocabulary acquisition. The current study tested the hypothesis that lexical characteristics account for variability in vocabulary size of young children with ASD, applying the extended statistical learning theory of vocabulary delay in late talkers (Stokes, Kern, & Dos Santos, 2012) to toddlers with ASD.

Method: Parents reported the words produced by toddlers with ASD (n = 57; age 21-37 months) or toddlers without ASD (n = 41; age 22-26 months) on the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. The average phonological neighborhood density, word frequency, and word length of each toddler's lexicon were calculated. These lexical characteristics served as predictors of vocabulary size.

Results: Findings differed for toddlers with and without ASD and according to subsamples. Word length was the most consistent predictor of vocabulary size for toddlers with ASD.

Conclusions: Distinct relationships between lexical characteristics and vocabulary size were observed for toddlers with and without ASD. Experimental studies on distributional cues to vocabulary acquisition are needed to inform what is known about mechanisms of learning in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Citing Articles

Studies assessing domains pertaining to structural language in autism vary in reporting practices and approaches to assessment: A systematic review.

Girolamo T, Shen L, Monroe Gulick A, Rice M, Eigsti I Autism. 2023; 28(7):1602-1621.

PMID: 38145307 PMC: 11189763. DOI: 10.1177/13623613231216155.

Studies pertaining to language impairment in school-age autistic individuals underreport participant socio-demographics: A systematic review.

Girolamo T, Shen L, Monroe-Gulick A, Rice M, Eigsti I Autism. 2023; 27(8):2218-2240.

PMID: 37157821 PMC: 10592656. DOI: 10.1177/13623613231166749.

Semantic and Syntactic Properties of Words and the Receptive-Expressive Gap in Autistic and Non-Autistic Children.

Artis J, Arunachalam S J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2023; 66(5):1771-1791.

PMID: 37137280 PMC: 10457093. DOI: 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00369.

Word imageability is associated with expressive vocabulary in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Lin K, Wisman Weil L, Thurm A, Lord C, Luyster R Autism Dev Lang Impair. 2022; 7:23969415221085827.

PMID: 36382067 PMC: 9620684. DOI: 10.1177/23969415221085827.

Child-oriented word associations improve models of early word learning.

Cox C, Haebig E Behav Res Methods. 2022; 55(1):16-37.

PMID: 35254630 PMC: 9918578. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-022-01790-y.

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