Linguistic and Cognitive Abilities in Children with Specific Language Impairment as Compared to Children with High-Functioning Autism

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the question as to whether and how the linguistic and other cognitive abilities of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) differ from those of children with High-Functioning Autism (HFA). To this end, 27 Dutch-speaking elementary-school-age children with SLI, 27 age-matched children with HFA, and a control group of 27 age-matched Typically Developing (TD) children were experimentally tested on various components of grammar, pragmatics, and nonverbal cognition. Prima facie, the results suggest a resemblance between SLI and HFA in their lower-than-TD performance on pragmatics. However, the children with SLI perform significantly weaker than the TD children on grammar and several cognition tests, while the children with HFA do not. It is concluded that, despite their initial resemblance in terms of pragmatics, children with SLI have profoundly different profiles from children with HFA in terms of grammar and nonverbal cognition and can thus not be considered as instantiations of the same continuum, as proposed by Bishop (2010).

Acknowledgments

Data were collected partly in collaboration with Iris Duinmeijer (PhD candidate, UvA) and our research assistants Jorik Geutjes, Doatske de Haan, Leanne Matimba, Irene Rademaker, Kim Schoof, Sybren Spit, and Merel van Witteloostuijn. Furthermore, a big thank-you goes to Merel van Witteloostuijn and Ava Creemers for their invaluable help with the scoring and (statistical) analysis of the data. Finally, I am very grateful to all the schools, teachers, parents, and children who participated in this study.

Funding

This project was made financially possible by the Research Priority Area “Amsterdam Brain & Cognition,” University of Amsterdam.

Notes

¹ The mass-count experiment presented in the present study is part of a larger mass-count experiment containing additional conditions such as count, classical mass, and object-mass (Witteloostuijn & Schaeffer 2014).

² Capitals indicate stress.

³ One of the items in the mass condition was excluded (Wie heeft er meer papier? ‘Who has more paper?’), since even the adults had an accuracy score of only 38.46% on this item. The TD children (35.71%) and the children with SLI (17.86%) and ASD (50%) also performed less well on this item as compared to the other items.

⁴ For the results on all mass-count conditions, see Creemers (2014).

⁵ Accuracy in the definite condition.

⁶ Accuracy scores in False Belief items.

⁷ Accuracy scores in inhibition items.

⁸ Raven’s percentile scores.

⁹ Memory level (max. 6).

¹⁰ Accuracy in the referential conditions combined.

¹¹ Only slightly, because their overall CELF scores are still significantly higher than those of the children with SLI.

¹² Forward and backward digit span are often considered nonverbal working memory tasks. However, in repeating the numbers, the words for the numbers are processed, comprehended, and produced. In this sense the digit span task does have a language component.

Additional information

Funding

This project was made financially possible by the Research Priority Area “Amsterdam Brain & Cognition,” University of Amsterdam.