Background
Girls with autism spectrum condition (ASC) are chronically underdiagnosed compared to boys, which may be due to poorly understood sex differences in a variety of domains, including social ...interest and motivation. In this study, we use natural language processing to identify objective markers of social phenotype that are easily obtained from a brief conversation with a nonexpert.
Methods
87 school‐aged children and adolescents with ASC (17 girls, 33 boys) or typical development (TD; 15 girls, 22 boys) were matched on age (mean = 11.35 years), IQ estimates (mean = 107), and – for ASC participants – level of social impairment. Participants engaged in an informal 5‐min ‘get to know you’ conversation with a nonexpert conversation partner. To measure attention to social groups, we analyzed first‐person plural pronoun variants (e.g., ‘we’ and ‘us’) and third‐person plural pronoun variants (e.g., ‘they’ and ‘them’).
Results
Consistent with prior research suggesting greater social motivation in autistic girls, autistic girls talked more about social groups than did ASC boys. Compared to TD girls, autistic girls demonstrated atypically heightened discussion of groups they were not a part of (‘they’, ‘them’), indicating potential awareness of social exclusion. Pronoun use predicted individual differences in the social phenotypes of autistic girls.
Conclusions
Relatively heightened but atypical social group focus is evident in autistic girls during spontaneous conversation, which contrasts with patterns observed in autistic boys and TD girls. Quantifying subtle linguistic differences in verbally fluent autistic girls is an important step toward improved identification and support for this understudied sector of the autism spectrum.
Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by social communication challenges and restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests, but also by highly heterogeneous language skills. The recent ...International Society of Autism Research (INSAR) policy statement, Autism and the Criminal Justice System: Policy opportunities and challenges (INSAR, 2022), aims to prevent, reduce, and improve interactions between autistic individuals and the criminal justice system. This policy statement provides a foundation for considering how to include language in these important aims. In this commentary, we outline the centrality of language skills to these interactions and provide specific recommendations that can inform future research and provide guidance for autistic individuals, community partners, and individuals working within the criminal justice system. Considering language as a part of justice system policy for autistic individuals will result in greater equity and inclusion, particularly for autistic individuals with co‐occurring language deficits and those who are linguistically diverse. Moreover, it will allow autistic individuals to combat other barriers to effectively navigating interactions with the criminal justice system, such as those related to the core features of autism. We advocate for a greater role for service providers who can assess challenges in language skills, and identify the specific accommodations each autistic individual will need to prevent, reduce, and improve interactions with the criminal justice system.
Lay Summary
Autistic individuals have varied language abilities which may represent assets or barriers to equitable interactions with the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system involves high language demands. We advocate considering language skills at all levels of justice system policy for autistic individuals, and we provide language‐focused strategies that may be implemented alongside the INSAR policy statement.
Background/objectives
Survivors of pediatric brain tumors (SPBT) experience significant social challenges, including fewer friends and greater isolation than peers. Difficulties in face processing ...and visual social attention have been implicated in these outcomes. This study evaluated facial expression recognition (FER), social attention, and their associations with social impairments in SPBT.
Methods
SPBT (N = 54; ages 7–16) at least 2 years post treatment completed a measure of FER, while parents completed measures of social impairment. A subset (N = 30) completed a social attention assessment that recorded eye gaze patterns while watching videos depicting pairs of children engaged in joint play. Social Prioritization scores were calculated, with higher scores indicating more face looking. Correlations and regression analyses evaluated associations between variables, while a path analysis modeling tool (PROCESS) evaluated the indirect effects of Social Prioritization on social impairments through emotion‐specific FER.
Results
Poorer recognition of angry and sad facial expressions was significantly correlated with greater social impairment. Social Prioritization was positively correlated with angry FER but no other emotions. Social Prioritization had significant indirect effects on social impairments through angry FER.
Conclusion
Findings suggest interventions aimed at improving recognition of specific emotions may mitigate social impairments in SPBT. Further, reduced social attention (i.e., diminished face looking) could be a factor in reduced face processing ability, which may result in social impairments. Longitudinal research is needed to elucidate temporal associations between social attention, face processing, and social impairments.
Eye tracking has long been used to characterize differences in social attention between autistic and non‐autistic children, but recent work has shown that these patterns may vary widely according to ...the biological sex of the participants and the social complexity and gender‐typicality of the eye tracking stimuli (e.g., barbies vs. transformers). To better understand effects of sex, social complexity, and object gender‐typicality on social and non‐social gaze behavior in autism, we compared the visual attention patterns of 67 autistic (ASD) and non‐autistic (NA) males (M) and females (F) (ASD M = 21; ASD F = 18; NA M = 14; NA F = 14) across four eye tracking paradigms varying in social complexity and object gender‐typicality. We found consistency across paradigms in terms of overall attention and attention to social stimuli, but attention to objects varied when paradigms considered gender in their stimulus design. Children attended more to gendered objects, particularly when the gender‐typicality of the object matched their assigned sex. These results demonstrate that visual social attention in autism is affected by interactions between a child's biological sex, social scene complexity, and object gender‐typicality and have broad implications for the design and interpretation of eye tracking studies.
Lay Summary
Eye tracking—which involves recording and studying eye movements that are made during visual presentations—has long been used to characterize social attention (visual attention to images or videos that show social stimuli, such as people) in autistic individuals. Recent studies have found differences in the attention of autistic males and females, and differences in attention overall based on how socially complex the stimuli are (i.e., scenes with one vs. two people; moving video vs. static images). In this study, we compared the eye gaze patterns of autistic and non‐autistic males and females across four different scenes that varied in social complexity and the inclusion of gender‐typical or gender‐neutral toys. There were no statistically significant differences in overall attention to the screen and attention to social stimuli between paradigms; However, objects representing male and female interests produced differences between males and females regardless of diagnosis. These findings suggest that social attention in autism can be strongly affected by biological sex, object gender‐typicality, and social scene complexity.
The availability of educational programming aimed at infants and toddlers is increasing, yet the effect of video on language acquisition remains unclear. Three studies of 96 children aged 30-42 ...months investigated their ability to learn verbs from video. Study 1 asked whether children could learn verbs from video when supported by live social interaction. Study 2 tested whether children could learn verbs from video alone. Study 3 clarified whether the benefits of social interaction remained when the experimenter was shown on a video screen rather than in person. Results suggest that younger children only learn verbs from video with live social interaction whereas older children can learn verbs from video alone. Implications for verb learning and educational media are discussed.
Infant vocalizations are early‐emerging communicative markers shown to be atypical in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but few longitudinal, prospective studies exist. In this study, 23,850 infant ...vocalizations from infants at low (LR)‐ and high (HR)‐risk for ASD (HR‐ASD = 23, female = 3; HR‐Neg = 35, female = 13; LR = 32, female = 10; 80% White; collected from 2007 to 2017 near Philadelphia) were analyzed at 6, 12, and 24 months. At 12 months, HR‐ASD infants produced fewer vocalizations than HR‐Neg infants. From 6 to 24 months, HR‐Neg infants demonstrated steeper vocalization growth compared to HR‐ASD and LR infants. Finally, among HR infants, vocalizing at 12 months was associated with language, social phenotype, and diagnosis at age 2. Infant vocalizing is an objective behavioral marker that could facilitate earlier detection of ASD.
Successful social communication is complex; it relies on effectively deploying and continuously revising one's behavior to fit the needs of a given conversation, partner, and context. For example, a ...skilled conversationalist may instinctively become less talkative with a quiet partner and more talkative with a chattier one. Prior research suggests that behavioral flexibility across social contexts can be a particular challenge for individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC), and that difficulty adapting to the changing needs of a conversation contributes to communicative breakdowns and poor social outcomes. In this study, we examine whether reduced conversational adaptation, as measured by talkativeness, differentiates 48 verbally fluent children and teens with ASC from 50 neurotypical (NT) peers matched on age, intelligence quotient, and sex ratio. Participants completed the Contextual Assessment of Social Skills with two novel conversation partners. The first acted interested in the conversation and talked more (Interested condition), while the second acted bored and talked less (Bored condition). Results revealed that NT participants emulated their conversation partner's behavior by being more talkative in the Interested condition as compared to the Bored condition (z = 9.92, p < 0.001). In contrast, the ASC group did not differentially adapt their behavior to the Bored versus Interested context, instead remaining consistently talkative in both (p = 0.88). The results of this study have implications for understanding social communication and behavioral adaptation in ASC, and may be valuable for clinicians interested in improving conversational competence in verbally fluent individuals with autism.
Lay Summary
Social communication—including everyday conversations—can be challenging for individuals on the autism spectrum. In successful conversations, people tend to adjust aspects of their language to be more similar to their partners'. In this study, we found that children and teens with autism did not change their own talkativeness in response to a social partner who was more or less talkative, whereas neurotypical peers did. These findings have clinical implications for improving conversational competence in verbally fluent individuals with autism.
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