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Autistic children's language imitation shows reduced sensitivity to ostracism

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posted on 2023-06-10, 00:13 authored by Zoë L Hopkins, Nicola YuillNicola Yuill, Holly P Branigan
In dialogue, speakers tend to imitate, or align with, a partner’s language choices. Higher levels of alignment facilitate communication and can be elicited by affiliation goals. Since autistic children have interaction and communication impairments, we investigated whether a failure to display affiliative language imitation contributes to their conversational difficulties. We measured autistic children’s lexical alignment with a partner, following an ostracism manipulation which induces affiliative motivation in typical adults and children. While autistic children demonstrated lexical alignment, we observed no affiliative influence on ostracised children’s tendency to align, relative to controls. Our results suggest that increased language imitation—a potentially valuable form of social adaptation—is unavailable to autistic children, which may reflect their impaired affective understanding.

Funding

Conversational alignment in children with Autistic Spectrum Condition and typically developing child; G2104; ESRC-ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL; ES/N013115/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

ISSN

0162-3257

Publisher

Springer

Event location

United States

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2021-06-25

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2021-06-25

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2021-06-25

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