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Narrative Discourse in Adults with High-Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome

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Abstract

We report a study comparing the narrative abilities of 12 adults with high-functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) versus 12 matched controls. The study focuses on the use of referential expressions (temporal expressions and anaphoric pronouns) during a story-telling task. The aim was to assess pragmatics skills in people with HFA/AS in whom linguistic impairments are more subtle than in classic autism. We predicted no significant differences in general narrative abilities between the two groups, but specific pragmatic deficits in people with AS. We predicted they use fewer personal pronouns, temporal expressions and referential expressions, which require theory of mind abilities. Results confirmed both predictions. These findings provide initial evidence of how social impairments can produce mild linguistic impairments.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants for their help, and Chris Ashwin, Alison Clare and Jacqueline Hill for their assistance. Livia Colle was supported by the Ministero italiano dell’Istruzione e dell’Università e della Ricerca (FIRB Project, “Assessment dei disturbi della comunicazione in un’ottica riabilitativa” code n. RBAU01JEYW_001) in the development of this work. Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright were supported by the MRC and Heather van der Lely was supported by the Wellcome Trust (Grant-nos: 044179; 059876; 063713) during the period of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Centre of Cognitive Science, University of Turin, via Po 14, Turin, 10123, Italy

    Livia Colle

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Autism Research Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Simon Baron-Cohen & Sally Wheelwright

  3. Department of Human Communication Science, Centre for Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK

    Heather K. J. van der Lely

Authors
  1. Livia Colle
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  2. Simon Baron-Cohen
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  3. Sally Wheelwright
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  4. Heather K. J. van der Lely
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Livia Colle.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Analysis of the references to the two main protagonists

The following counts were made:

Type of NPs:

  • indef. NPs

  • def. NPs

  • pronouns

  • zero anaphors

  • total number of references (indef. NPs + def. NPs + pronouns + zeros + relative pronouns + possessive determiners)

Episodes and expressions used for maintaining reference:

  • total number of episodes

  • Episodes with at least one maintenance of reference

  • Episodes with one or more pronouns and/or zero referring back to an expression in that episode

  • Number of pronouns and zeros referring back to a previous expression

Ambiguous references:

  • Number of ambiguous references for (i) pronouns; (ii) possessive pronouns

Inappropriate indef. NPs:

  • number of indef. NPs used inappropriately

Theory of mind expressions:

  • number of verbs and adjective that describes any characters’ affective and cognitive states (e.g., “the boy was sad”, “he believed it was a bush”)

Temporal expressions:

  • number of adverbs, across the episodes, which relate temporally two sentences (e.g., “when he was in the pound, he hear...”)

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Colle, L., Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S. et al. Narrative Discourse in Adults with High-Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome. J Autism Dev Disord 38, 28–40 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0357-5

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