Poster #68 - Cats say Meow: Parent use of Generics Reflected in Child Language Level

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

Background: Knowledge of categories is important for successfully navigating the world. Parents of typically developing (TD) children start using categorical language with their children when they are as young as 10 months (Wei et al., 2022). For example, parents use generics, which are statements referring to categories/classes rather than individuals (e.g., “elephants are big,” “cats say meow,” “What kind of animal eats seeds?” Gelman et al., 2015). Notably, early parental use of categorical language predicts children’s later expressive language (Wei et al., 2022). Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulty with categorical awareness (Tecoulesco et al., 2020). Given the importance of parental use of categorical language in typical development, the present study investigates whether this difficulty with categories in ASD may be related to differences in parental input.

Methods: 34 parent-child dyads (16 children with ASD and 18 TD children) were drawn from a larger longitudinal study of early language (Naigles & Fein, 2017). At three visits (V1, V2, and V3), each separated by four months, the dyads were recorded during a thirty-minute semi-structured play session. At V1, the TD and ASD groups were matched on receptive language age equivalents (M(TD)=25.33; M(ASD)=22.63; t=23.284, p<.001); with the ASD group being older than the TD group (33 vs 21 months, respectively). Each session was coded for the amount and type of generics in the parent’s speech. At each timepoint, children’s vocabulary was measured via parent report (CDI); mean length of utterance (MLU) was calculated from transcripts of the play sessions.

Results: At V1 and V2, parents in the TD and ASD groups produced a comparable number of generics (V1: t=.377, V2: t=1.596, ps>.05). At V3, however, parents of the TD group produced a significantly higher number of generics than parents of the ASD group (t=2.322, p=.014; Figure 1). Importantly, this group difference persisted when generics were analyzed as a proportion of the parent’s total utterances, indicating that this result is not due to differences in the total amount of parent speech. At V3, significant correlations were found in the ASD group between proportion of generics per utterance in parent speech and CDI score (r=.635, p=.015), and proportion of generics per utterance in parent speech and children’s MLU (r=.607, p=.016); no correlations emerged for the TD group.

Discussion: In parent-child dyads, parents of TD children produced more generics than parents of children with ASD, indicating the latter children may be missing critical input. Supporting this, parents’ use of generics in proportion to total utterances reflected a higher score for their child with ASD in vocabulary and grammar language measures, highlighting the importance of generics in language development. Evaluating later time points may shed light on whether parents are sensitive to their child’s language level or whether their use of generics is driving their child’s development.

Authors

• Julia Johnson, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Lee Tecoulesco, Boys Town National Research Hospital

• Letitia R Naigles, University of Connecticut