Jeannette Schaeffer, Ava Creemers & Merel van Witteloostuijn Acquisition Meeting Utrecht, 11 April, 2015

Article Choice in children with High Functioning Autism (HFA) and in children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)

Introduction ¢ 

Main claims £  Article choice relies on pragmatic principles £  No overgeneration of the in indefinite contexts £  A subgroup of children with ASD and SLI overgenerate a in definite conditions

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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ASD and SLI ¢ 

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) £ 

£  £ 

¢ 

Developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interactions in communication Grammar intact, pragmatics impaired High Functioning Autism (HFA)

Specific Language Impairment (SLI) £ 

£ 

Impairment of language comprehension, production, or both in the absence of hearing impairment, general developmental delay, neurological impairment Grammar impaired, pragmatics intact Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Background – Article Choice in Dutch Examples article choice: (1)

Dit is een verhaal over een (bepaalde) jongen. De jongen woonde in een groot kasteel. ‘This is a story about a (certain) boy. The boy lived in a big castle’

(2)

Ik heb zin om een boek te lezen (wat voor boek dan ook). ‘I feel like reading a book (whatever book it may be).

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Background - cont’d A: Definite (Referential)

Referent assumed to exist by speaker and hearer

the (de/het)

B: Indefinite Referential

Referent assumed to exist by speaker only

a (een)

C: Indefinite Nonreferential

Referent assumed to exist by neither speaker nor hearer

a (een)

(Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005 (based on Stalnaker, 1974; 1978; Heim, 1982))

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Previous acquisition studies

Overgeneration of the in indefinite referential contexts (Maratsos, 1976; Karmiloff-Smith, 1979; Zehler & Brewer, 1982; Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005, van Hout et al., 2010; Zdorenko & Paradis, 2011)

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Previous acquisition studies – cont’d Examples: Situation: Picture of Mickey Mouse who just finished drawing a house (visible to child, but not to experimenter). Exp: What did Mickey Mouse just do? Child: He drew the house (Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005)

A cat and two birds were sitting in a tree. Something flew out. What was it? Child: the bird (van Hout et al., 2010)

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Previous acquisition studies – cont’d Concept of Non-Shared Assumptions (CNSA): Speaker and hearer assumptions are always independent (Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005)

Young children lack this pragmatic principle and sometimes base their article choice solely on speaker assumptions è the-overuse in indefinite referential contexts

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Previous acquisition studies – cont’d

Overly liberal interpretation of the indefinite article in definite contexts (van Hout et al., 2010)

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Previous acquisition studies – cont’d Example: John sees his teacher with a piece of cake. He asks her if he can have a piece of cake. Target: a different piece (van Hout et al., 2010)

Explanation: Adults draw scalar implicature when they interpret indefinite NPs (Hawkins 1991; Horn 2006)

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Previous acquisition studies – cont’d Definiteness Scale (Horn, 2006) weak term

strong term


the>

Maxim of Quantity (Grice, 1975): Be as informative as is required/ necessary (not more, and not less)

Definite context: Semantically, both a and the are correct ¢  Pragmatically, the is stronger/more informative ¢ 

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Previous acquisition studies – cont’d Scalar implicature Choice of the weaker term a suggests that the stronger term the does not hold (referent is assumed to exist only by speaker, and NOT by both speaker and hearer)

Young children don’t calculate scalar implicatures à free choice between the and a in definite contexts à overgeneration of a (van Hout et al., 2010) Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Present study – Hypotheses (1) (based on Schaeffer & Matthewson, 2005)

I. 

II. 

III. 

For correct indefinite article choice, it is necessary to have an intact CNSA Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have impaired pragmatics, and possibly lack the CNSA Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) do not have impaired pragmatics, so their CNSA is intact Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Present study – Hypotheses (2) (based on van Hout et al., 2010)

I. 

II. 

III. 

For correct definite article choice, it is necessary to calculate a scalar implicature Children with ASD have impaired pragmatics, so possibly fail to calculate scalar implicature Children with SLI do not have impaired pragmatics, so no difficulty to calculate scalar implicature

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Present study – Predictions (ASD) I. 

II. 

Children with ASD overuse de/het in referential indefinite contexts because they lack CNSA Children with ASD overuse een in definite contexts because they fail to calculate scalar implicature

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Present study – Predictions (SLI) I. 

II. 

Children with SLI do not overuse de/het in referential indefinite contexts because they do not lack CNSA Children with SLI do not overuse een in definite contexts because they can calculate scalar implicature

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Methods ¢ 

Participants: £ 

27 children with SLI: age 6 – 14, mean 9;6 (SD 2.2)

£ 

27 children wih HFA: age 5 – 14, mean 10;0 (SD 2.3)

£ 

27 TD children: age 6 – 14, mean 9;10 (SD 2.2)

£ 

16 adults: age 20 – 56, mean 34;2 (SD 14.5)

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Methods – cont’d ¢ 

Materials: Condition  

#items  

1 – Definite  

6  

2 – Indefinite referential

6  

3 – Indefinite non-referential  

6  

Total experimental items  

18  

Fillers  

18  

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Methods – cont’d Sample item - definite

Exp: Part: Exp: Part:

Hey, who do you see in the picture? Katrijn! What else? a ball!

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Methods – cont’d Sample item - definite

Exp:

What did Katrijn just do?

Target: She rolled the ball

Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Methods – cont’d Sample item – indefinite referential

Exp:

What did Dora just do?

Target: She drew a heart

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Methods – cont’d Sample item – indefinite non-referential

Situation: Big Bird says” “Oh, I am so bored, I don’t know what to do. You know what, I’ll go to the forest and draw something!” Exp:

What do you think Big Bird is going to do?

Target: He is going to draw a tree Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Results – Indefinite Referential 100

100

99

97

96

90 80

Percentage

70 60

Indefinite

50

Definite

40

Other

30 20 10 0

0

0

Adults

0 TD

1

0 HFA

4

1

2

SLI

SLI = HFA = TD Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Results – Indefinite Non-referential 100

99 90

90

86

83

80

Percentage

70 60

Indefinite

50

Definite

40

Other

30 20 10 0

15

10 0

1

Adults

12

1

1

2

TD

HFA

SLI

SLI = HFA = TD Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Results - Definite 100

98

81

90

81*

81*

80

Percentage

70 60

Definite

50

Indefinite

40

Other

30 15

20 10

2

0

0

Adult

SLI < TD (p < .05) HFA < TD (p < .05)

4 TD

13 7

4

1 HFA

SLI

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Summary of results ¢ 

¢ 

No de/het overuse in indefinite contexts Both HFA and SLI overuse een in definite contexts (13 and 15%)

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Individual analyses – Definite ¢ 

¢  ¢ 

¢  ¢ 

Heterogeneity of impaired populations Passers: 0 or 1 indefinite (out of 6) Failers: 2 or more indefinites (out of 6) 6 HFA failers (22%) 4 SLI failers (15%) Article choice in HFA and SLI

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Conclusions ¢ 

à

None of the participants overgenerate de/het in indefinite contexts Children with SLI and children with HFA older than 6 have the CNSA

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Conclusions ¢ 

à

4 children with SLI and 6 children with HFA overgenerate een in definite contexts Some children with SLI and HFA fail to draw the scalar implicature

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Acknowledgements ¢  ¢ 

¢  ¢ 

Iris Duinmeijer – AIO UvA Doatske de Haan (RMA UvA), Jorik Geutjes (RMA UU), Kim Schoof (BA UvA), Sybren Spit (BA UvA), Irene Rademaker (BA UU) All our child participants and their parents Adult participants

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Individual analyses – Definite Group  

N  

HFA failers   HFA passers SLI failers   SLI passers   TD passers  

6   21   4   23   26  

Ar%cle   choice   39*   92%   42%*   88%   95%  

CELF  

WM  

79%   49%   9%*   8%*   73%  

4.0   4.3   3.0*   3.6*   4.9  

* = significantly worse than TD

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Conclusions relationship SLI-ASD ¢ 

à

HFA and SLI failers show different profiles when we look at grammar and non-verbal working memory Children with HFA and SLI have distinct etiologies

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