As practitioners dedicated to improving the lives of children, it's crucial to stay updated with the latest research in our field. One particularly insightful study is "The Interface of Syntax with Pragmatics and Prosody in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders" by Terzi et al. (2016). This research provides valuable insights into how children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) interact with different aspects of language, particularly syntax, pragmatics, and prosody.
The study focused on 20 high-functioning Greek-speaking children with ASD and compared them with typically developing children. The researchers found that children with ASD had specific difficulties with clitic pronouns, particularly in understanding and producing them correctly. These challenges were most evident in tasks that required distinguishing between discourse-prominent elements and considering intonation for interpretation.
Here are some key takeaways from the study that you can implement in your practice:
- Focus on Pragmatics and Prosody: The study highlights the importance of pragmatics and prosody in language development for children with ASD. Incorporate exercises that emphasize these aspects, such as using varied intonation patterns and teaching the significance of discourse context.
- Use Visual Aids: The researchers used picture selection tasks to assess comprehension. Implementing similar visual aids can help children better understand the relationship between syntax and pragmatics.
- Practice Clitic Pronouns: Create activities that specifically target the use of clitic pronouns in different contexts. This can help children with ASD become more comfortable with these linguistic structures.
- Monitor Syntax Complexity: Be mindful of the syntactic complexity of the tasks you set. The study found that increased syntactic complexity did not exacerbate difficulties, suggesting that the primary challenge lies at the interface of syntax with pragmatics and prosody.
Encouraging further research and continuous learning is essential. By staying informed and adapting your methods based on the latest findings, you can create better outcomes for the children you work with.
To read the original research paper, please follow this link: The Interface of Syntax with Pragmatics and Prosody in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
