The use of demonstratives and personal pronouns in fragile X syndrome and autism spectrum disorder

ABSTRACT

Demonstratives (e.g. here, that, these) and personal pronouns are early developing components of language, which are often impaired in young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Additionally, demonstrative and personal pronoun use are linked to joint attention and language ability early in life for individuals with ASD. Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is a genetic disorder with a significant amount of overlap in its behavioural phenotype with ASD. The present study examined demonstrative and personal pronoun production during a conversation sample in adolescent boys with ASD and adolescent boys with FXS with a co-diagnosis of ASD (FXS+ASD). Findings indicated that grammatical complexity was related to both qualitative and quantitative aspects of demonstrative and personal pronoun production in boys with ASD, while grammatical complexity was related to the total number of demonstratives and personal pronouns produced in the boys with FXS+ASD. ASD severity was not related to demonstrative or personal pronoun production in ASD, although it was negatively correlated with the total number of personal pronouns produced by the boys with FXS. Additionally, groups did not differ significantly in production of personal pronouns, but they did differ significantly in multiple aspects of demonstrative use. Findings suggest that these groups produce similar rates of personal pronouns in the school-age years, while production of demonstratives differentiates these groups. This study contributes to the knowledge of the language phenotypes of idiopathic ASD and FXS+ASD, and provides implications for intervention targets for school-age children with these disorders.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism spectrum disorder
• fragile X syndrome
• demonstratives
• personal pronouns
• language

Acknowledgments

We thank the families that participated in this research. We also thank Susen Schroeder for her help with personal pronoun coding development, Kellie Willis and Shelby Gunderson for their assistance with coding, as well as the rest of the Research in Developmental Disabilities Language Lab for assistance with recruitment and data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by NIDCD grants R03 DC011616 and T32 DC05359, NICHD grant P30 HD03352, and start-up funds from the University of Wisconsin-Madison awarded to Audra Sterling. The authors have no additional declarations of interest to report.