Lexical Processing in Toddlers with ASD: Does Weak Central Coherence Play a Role?

Lexical Processing in Toddlers with ASD: Does Weak Central Coherence Play a Role?

J Autism Dev Disord. 2016 Oct 1;:

Authors: Ellis Weismer S, Haebig E, Edwards J, Saffran J, Venker CE

Abstract
This study investigated whether vocabulary delays in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can be explained by a cognitive style that prioritizes processing of detailed, local features of input over global contextual integration-as claimed by the weak central coherence (WCC) theory. Thirty toddlers with ASD and 30 younger, cognition-matched typical controls participated in a looking-while-listening task that assessed whether perceptual or semantic similarities among named images disrupted word recognition relative to a neutral condition. Overlap of perceptual features invited local processing whereas semantic overlap invited global processing. With the possible exception of a subset of toddlers who had very low vocabulary skills, these results provide no evidence that WCC is characteristic of lexical processing in toddlers with ASD.

PMID: 27696177 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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