Autism and Faux Pas. Influences of Presentation Modality and Working Memory.

People diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties on Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks involving social situations, such as 'faux pas'. The objective of this study was to find the modality of presentation (visual, verbal, or mixed) that yields the best understanding of a 'faux pas', and the possible influence of other variables, including intelligence (IQ), age, and working memory. Thirty autistic children and 30 neurotypical children, all aged 7 to 12 years old and comparable in age and IQ, participated in this study. They were asked to resolve nine 'faux pas' stories (three per modality). Significant between-groups differences were found in the visual (t = 2.99, p = .004) and verbal modalities (t = 2.64, p = .011), such that the neurotypical (NT) group had higher scores than the ASD group. The ASD group's comprehension was better via the mixed modality than the verbal modality (t = 2.48, p = .019). In addition, working memory had a bigger impact on Faux Pas understanding in cases of autism than in typical development (R2 explained between .19 and .28 of variance in Faux Pas test outcomes), and could therefore explain some of the difficulties previously reported in this area. Future research should include a measure of working memory and a control among the stimuli presented to test for group differences in faux pas understanding.

Autism and faux pas. Influences of presentation modality and working memory

People diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties on Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks involving social situations, such as 'faux pas'. The objective of this study was to find the modality of presentation (visual, verbal, or mixed) that yields the best understanding of a 'faux pas', and the possible influence of other variables, including intelligence (IQ), age, and working memory. Thirty autistic children and 30 neurotypical children, all aged 7 to 12 years old and comparable in age and IQ, participated in this study. They were asked to resolve nine 'faux pas' stories (three per modality). Significant between-groups differences were found in the visual (t = 2.99, p = .004) and verbal modalities (t = 2.64, p = .011), such that the neurotypical (NT) group had higher scores than the ASD group. The ASD group's comprehension was better via the mixed modality than the verbal modality (t = 2.48, p = .019). In addition, working memory had a bigger impact on Faux Pas understanding in cases of autism than in typical development (R2 explained between .19 and .28 of variance in Faux Pas test outcomes), and could therefore explain some of the difficulties previously reported in this area. Future research should include a measure of working memory and a control among the stimuli presented to test for group differences in faux pas understanding

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[Pragmatic difficulties in children with specific language impairment. The role of mentalistic tasks]. / Dificultades pragmáticas en el trastorno especifico del lenguaje. El papel de las tareas mentalistas.

Several subjects with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show communicative and pragmatic problems. In this study, we suggested that mentalistic comprehension tasks would help us to find a deteriorated pragmatic profile among the population with SLI. To achieve this goal, a group of participants with conventional SLI (n=11) was compared to a group of SLI with more pragmatic problems (n=9) and their respective control group with typically developed language (n=13), of ages between 4 and 7 years. Results revealed that all the groups were able to attribute mental states in tasks where the context was structured. However, the subjects with predominant pragmatic SLI showed poorer performance than those with conventional SLI when tasks were communicative-oriented and they needed to process non-explicit information from the context. These findings suggest that it is possible to isolate a SLI subtype with more pragmatic problems and also that we can use mentalistic tasks to assess these difficulties more accurately.

Dificultades pragmáticas en el trastorno específico del lenguaje. El papel de las tareas mentalistas / Pragmatic difficulties in children with specific language impairment. The role of mentalistic tasks

Gran número de sujetos con Trastorno Específico del Lenguaje (TEL) manifiestan problemas comunicativos y de tipo pragmático. Este estudio se planteó analizar el papel de las tareas de comprensión mentalista en la distinción de un perfil TEL con problemas predominantemente pragmáticos. Para ello se comparó la ejecución en tareas mentalistas de un grupo de participantes con TEL convencional (n= 11), un grupo con TEL con mayor afectación pragmática (n= 9) y un grupo con desarrollo típico del lenguaje (n= 13) de edades comprendidas entre 4 y 7 años. Los resultados revelaron que todos los grupos fueron igualmente capaces de atribuir estados mentales cuando el contexto está estructurado. Sin embargo, los sujetos con TEL pragmático tuvieron menos éxito que el grupo TEL convencional cuando las tareas estaban orientadas de manera comunicativa y necesitaban procesar información no explícita del contexto. Nuestros datos apoyan la posibilidad de aislar un subtipo de TEL con especiales problemas pragmáticos, así como el uso de tareas mentalistas para evaluar de forma más precisa estas dificultades (AU)

Several subjects with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) show communicative and pragmatic problems. In this study, we suggested that mentalistic comprehension tasks would help us to find a deteriorated pragmatic profile among the population with SLI. To achieve this goal, a group of participants with conventional SLI (n= 11) was compared to a group of SLI with more pragmatic problems (n= 9) and their respective control group with typically developed language (n= 13), of ages between 4 and 7 years. Results revealed that all the groups were able to attribute mental states in tasks where the context was structured. However, the subjects with predominant pragmatic SLI showed poorer performance than those with conventional SLI when tasks were communicative-oriented and they needed to process non-explicit information from the context. These findings suggest that it is possible to isolate a SLI subtype with more pragmatic problems and also that we can use mentalistic tasks to assess these difficulties more accurately (AU)