The art of common ground: emergence of a complex pragmatic language skill in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

DE MARCHENA, ASHLEY; EIGSTI, INGE-MARIE

doi:10.1017/s0305000915000070

Cited by 58Autism Spectrum Disorder ResearchLanguage Development and DisordersChild and Animal Learning Development

The art of common ground: emergence of a complex pragmatic language skill in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

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DE MARCHENA, ASHLEY, EIGSTI, INGE-MARIE·2016·Journal of Child Language

DOI 10.1017/s0305000915000070PMC PMC4764348

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Abstract

Deficits in pragmatic language are central to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here we investigate common ground, a pragmatic language skill in which speakers adjust the contents of their speech based on their interlocutor's perceived knowledge, in adolescents with ASD and typical development (TD), using an experimental narrative paradigm. Consistent with prior research, TD participants produced shorter narrations when they shared knowledge with an interlocutor, an effect not observed at the group level in ASD. This effect was unrelated to general skills such as IQ or receptive vocabulary. In ASD, the effect was correlated with age and symptom severity: older and less severely affected participants did shorten their narratives. Several metrics (including explicit references to common ground, speech disfluencies, and communicative quality ratings) suggested that, although adolescents with ASD did not show implicit reductions in their narrative length, they were aware of common ground, and communicated differently in its presence.

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Children and adults with ASD produce unusually high rates of various speech disfluencies.
“A significant body of research suggests that children and adults with ASD produce unusually high rates of various speech disfluencies [16, 35, 42, 50, 51, 54], but only three studies have specifically examined UM and UH.”
From Linguistic camouflage in girls with autism spectrum disorder (2017) · cites this paper as [16]

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Authors: DE MARCHENA, A., & EIGSTI, I.-M.
Affiliations: University of Connecticut (US)
ORCID: EIGSTI, INGE-MARIE
Venue: Journal of Child Language
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published: 2015-02-24
Volume: 43
Issue: 1
Pages: 43-80
ISSN: 0305-0009 (ISSN-L)
1469-7602
DOI: 10.1017/s0305000915000070
PMC: PMC4764348
OpenAlex: W2008366791
Cited by: 58
References: 59
Citations by year: 2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1
FWCI: 3.01
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: green
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Licence: www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified)
Locations: Journal of Child Language (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (T32NS007413)
Topics: Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
Keywords: common ground, pragmatic language, autism spectrum disorder, adolescents, narrative length, common knowledge, disfluency, symptom severity, age differences, communication characteristics
MeSH terms: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Adolescent, Child, Communication, Female, Humans, Language Development, Male, Speech, Case-Control Studies, Narration, Social Skills

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The art of common ground: emergence of a complex pragmatic language skill in adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

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