International Meeting for Autism Research (London, May 15-17, 2008): Understanding Pronominal Reference in Adults with High-Functioning Autism

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Champagne Terrace/Bordeaux (Novotel London West)

A. Mizuno , Psychology, Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

D. L. Williams , Department of Speech Language Pathology, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA

T. A. Keller , Psychology, Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

N. J. Minshew , Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA

M. A. Just , Psychology, Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Background: Personal pronouns, such as ‘I’ and ‘you,’ alternate to whom they refer according to the context. To comprehend and operate these pronominal shifts in conversation, the constant updating of the center of reference, or perspective-taking skill, is required. Atypical usage of pronouns is characteristic of the language deficit in autism but exclusively during childhood (Cantwell et al., 1989; Lee et al., 1994). However, the underlying processing difference that resulted in pronominal reversal in childhood may still be detectible in adults with autism.

Objectives: This study had two objectives: (1) to investigate the atypical preference towards proper names over pronouns and the impediment of pronoun shift as a function of linguistic perspective-taking, (2) and to confirm the intact visuo-spatial perspective-taking in adults with autism.

Methods: Participants were 14 adults with high-functioning autism (mean age 26.43, full-scale IQ 105.64) and 13 age- and IQ-matched controls. They performed computerized role-taking tasks. The visual stimuli presented a simple object and a question regarding the object from either the participant’s or experimenter’s perspective.

Results: The results showed that adults with autism performed the task as well as the matched control participants based on the error rates; however, the autism group took a significantly longer time to accomplish the task when using a pronominal expression to refer the subject or experimenter rather than their proper names. The autism group also showed a slower reaction time than the control group, when the center of reference was shifted between the experimenter and the participant in the trial, requiring a pronoun reversal. It is also confirmed that there was no performance difference in the visuo-spatial perspective-taking tasks between groups.

Conclusions: These results suggest that, whereas adults with autism do not have obvious difficulty with pronominal expressions, their mental processing may be atypical, probably associated with difficulty with perspective-taking.

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