Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism

R Bedford; T Gliga; K Frame; K Hudry; Susie Chandler; M H Johnson; Tony Charman; BASIS Team; Patrick Bolton

doi:10.1017/S0305000912000086

Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism

R Bedford, T Gliga, K Frame, K Hudry, Susie Chandler, M H Johnson, Tony Charman, BASIS Team, Patrick Bolton

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

30 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learning unless ostensive feedback is provided on the child's object choice (Horst & Samuelson, 2008). We found that although toddlers aged 2; 0 at risk for autism can use ME to choose the correct referent of a word, they do not benefit from feedback for long-term retention of the word-object mapping. Further, their difficulty using feedback is associated with their smaller receptive vocabularies. We propose that difficulties learning from social feedback, not lexical principles, limits vocabulary building during development in children at risk for autism.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	29-46
Number of pages	18
Journal	JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE
Volume	40
Issue number	S1
Early online date	5 Dec 2012
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000086
Publication status	Published - Jan 2013

Access to Document

10.1017/S0305000912000086

Cite this

@article{5562f55830ba4112b76efe17971196c9,

title = "Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism",

abstract = "Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learning unless ostensive feedback is provided on the child's object choice (Horst & Samuelson, 2008). We found that although toddlers aged 2; 0 at risk for autism can use ME to choose the correct referent of a word, they do not benefit from feedback for long-term retention of the word-object mapping. Further, their difficulty using feedback is associated with their smaller receptive vocabularies. We propose that difficulties learning from social feedback, not lexical principles, limits vocabulary building during development in children at risk for autism.",

author = "R Bedford and T Gliga and K Frame and K Hudry and Susie Chandler and Johnson, {M H} and Tony Charman and {BASIS Team} and Patrick Bolton",

year = "2013",

month = jan,

doi = "10.1017/S0305000912000086",

language = "English",

volume = "40",

pages = "29--46",

journal = "JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE",

issn = "0305-0009",

publisher = "Cambridge University Press",

number = "S1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism

AU - Bedford, R

AU - Gliga, T

AU - Frame, K

AU - Hudry, K

AU - Chandler, Susie

AU - Johnson, M H

AU - Charman, Tony

AU - BASIS Team

AU - Bolton, Patrick

PY - 2013/1

Y1 - 2013/1

N2 - Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learning unless ostensive feedback is provided on the child's object choice (Horst & Samuelson, 2008). We found that although toddlers aged 2; 0 at risk for autism can use ME to choose the correct referent of a word, they do not benefit from feedback for long-term retention of the word-object mapping. Further, their difficulty using feedback is associated with their smaller receptive vocabularies. We propose that difficulties learning from social feedback, not lexical principles, limits vocabulary building during development in children at risk for autism.

AB - Children's assignment of novel words to nameless objects, over objects whose names they know (mutual exclusivity; ME) has been described as a driving force for vocabulary acquisition. Despite their ability to use ME to fast-map words (Preissler & Carey, 2005), children with autism show impaired language acquisition. We aimed to address this puzzle by building on studies showing that correct referent selection using ME does not lead to word learning unless ostensive feedback is provided on the child's object choice (Horst & Samuelson, 2008). We found that although toddlers aged 2; 0 at risk for autism can use ME to choose the correct referent of a word, they do not benefit from feedback for long-term retention of the word-object mapping. Further, their difficulty using feedback is associated with their smaller receptive vocabularies. We propose that difficulties learning from social feedback, not lexical principles, limits vocabulary building during development in children at risk for autism.

U2 - 10.1017/S0305000912000086

DO - 10.1017/S0305000912000086

M3 - Article

C2 - 23217290

SN - 0305-0009

VL - 40

SP - 29

EP - 46

JO - JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE

JF - JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE

IS - S1

ER -

Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism

Abstract

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this