Predictive Language Processing in Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study

Overview

Journal J Psycholinguist Res

Publisher Springer

Specialty Psychology

Date 2018 Nov 3

PMID 30386979

Citations 9

Authors

Peng Zhou

Likan Zhan

Huimin Ma

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Sentence comprehension relies on the abilities to rapidly integrate different types of linguistic and non-linguistic information. The present study investigated whether Mandarin-speaking preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are able to use verb information predictively to anticipate the upcoming linguistic input during real-time sentence comprehension. 26 five-year-olds with ASD, 25 typically developing (TD) five-year-olds and 24 TD four-year-olds were tested using the visual world eye-tracking paradigm. The results showed that the 5-year-olds with ASD, like their TD peers, exhibited verb-based anticipatory eye movements during real-time sentence comprehension. No difference was observed between the ASD and TD groups in the time course of their eye gaze patterns, indicating that Mandarin-speaking preschool children with ASD are able to use verb information as effectively and rapidly as TD peers to predict the upcoming linguistic input.

Citing Articles

Online Processing of Grammatical Aspect in Subsamples of Preschool Mandarin-acquiring Autistic Children.

Xie Q, Su Y J Autism Dev Disord. 2025; .

PMID: 40019619 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-025-06758-3.

Linguistic Prediction in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

OShea A, Engelhardt P Brain Sci. 2025; 15(2).

PMID: 40002508 PMC: 11852888. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci15020175.

Continuing the conversation about echolalia and gestalt language development: A response to Haydock, Harrison, Baldwin, and Leadbitter.

Venker C, Lorang E Autism. 2024; 29(3):821-824.

PMID: 39340336 PMC: 11894846. DOI: 10.1177/13623613241287577.

The effect of volatility in linguistic input on prediction behavior in autistic toddlers.

Prescott K, Mathee-Scott J, Bolt D, Saffran J, Weismer S Autism Res. 2024; 17(11):2305-2318.

PMID: 39129226 PMC: 11568938. DOI: 10.1002/aur.3212.

Predictive Processing During Cue-Outcome Associative Learning in Autistic Children.

Papastamou F, Dumont C, Destrebecqz A, Kissine M J Autism Dev Disord. 2024; .

PMID: 38951312 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-024-06448-6.

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