scholarly journals "If you catch my drift...": ability to infer implied meaning is distinct from vocabulary and grammar skills

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Wilson ◽  
Dorothy V.M. Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Factor Structure ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Pragmatic Language Skills ◽  
Confirmatory Analysis ◽  
Pragmatic Skills ◽  
Core Language ◽  
Implied Meaning

Background: Some individuals with autism find it challenging to use and understand language in conversation, despite having good abilities in core aspects of language such as grammar and vocabulary. This suggests that pragmatic skills (such as understanding implied meanings in conversation) are separable from core language skills. However, it has been surprisingly difficult to demonstrate this dissociation in the general population. We propose that this may be because prior studies have used tasks in which different aspects of language are confounded. Methods: The present study used novel language tasks and factor analysis to test whether pragmatic language skills are separable from core language skills. 120 adult participants were recruited online to complete a 7-task battery, including a test assessing comprehension of conversational implicature. Results: In confirmatory analysis of a preregistered model, we compared whether the data showed better fit to a two-factor structure (including a pragmatic conversation comprehension and core language factor) or a simpler one-factor structure (comprising a general language factor). The two-factor model showed significantly better fit. Conclusions: This study supports the view that interpreting context-dependent conversational meaning is partially distinct from core language skill. This has implications for understanding the pragmatic language impairments reported in autism.

scholarly journals "If you catch my drift...": ability to infer implied meaning is distinct from vocabulary and grammar skills

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Wilson ◽  
Dorothy V.M. Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Factor Structure ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
General Factor ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Confirmatory Analysis ◽  
Core Language ◽  
Implied Meaning

Background: Some individuals with autism find it challenging to use and understand language in conversation, despite having good abilities in core aspects of language such as grammar and vocabulary. This suggests that pragmatic skills (such as understanding implied meanings in conversation) are separable from core language skills. However, it has been surprisingly difficult to demonstrate this dissociation in the general population. We propose that this may be because prior studies have used tasks in which different aspects of language are confounded. Methods: The present study used novel language tasks and factor analysis to test whether pragmatic understanding of implied meaning, as part of a broader domain involving social understanding, is separable from core language skills. 120 adult participants were recruited online to complete a 7-task battery, including a test assessing comprehension of conversational implicature. Results: In confirmatory analysis of a preregistered model, we compared whether the data showed better fit to a two-factor structure (including a “social understanding” and “core language” factor) or a simpler one-factor structure (comprising a general factor). The two-factor model showed significantly better fit. Conclusions: This study supports the view that interpreting context-dependent conversational meaning is partially distinct from core language skills. This has implications for understanding the pragmatic language impairments reported in autism.

scholarly journals "If you catch my drift...": ability to infer implied meaning is distinct from vocabulary and grammar skills

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander C. Wilson ◽  
Dorothy V.M. Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Factor Structure ◽  
Factor Model ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
General Factor ◽  
Social Understanding ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Confirmatory Analysis ◽  
Core Language ◽  
Implied Meaning

Background: Some individuals with autism find it challenging to use and understand language in conversation, despite having good abilities in core aspects of language such as grammar and vocabulary. This suggests that pragmatic skills (such as understanding implied meanings in conversation) are separable from core language skills. However, it has been surprisingly difficult to demonstrate this dissociation in the general population. We propose that this may be because prior studies have used tasks in which different aspects of language are confounded. Methods: The present study used novel language tasks and factor analysis to test whether pragmatic understanding of implied meaning, as part of a broader domain involving social understanding, is separable from core language skills. 120 adult participants were recruited online to complete a 7-task battery, including a test assessing comprehension of conversational implicature. Results: In confirmatory analysis of a preregistered model, we compared whether the data showed better fit to a two-factor structure (including a “social understanding” and “core language” factor) or a simpler one-factor structure (comprising a general factor). The two-factor model showed significantly better fit. Conclusions: This study supports the view that interpreting context-dependent conversational meaning is partially distinct from core language skills. This has implications for understanding the pragmatic language impairments reported in autism.

scholarly journals A novel online assessment of pragmatic and core language skills: An attempt to tease apart language domains in children

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Alexander C. WILSON ◽  
Dorothy V. M. BISHOP
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Zero Order ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Online Assessment ◽  
Pragmatic Language Skills ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Pragmatic Skills ◽  
Core Language

Abstract It remains unclear whether pragmatic language skills and core language skills (grammar and vocabulary) are distinct language domains. The present work aimed to tease apart these domains using a novel online assessment battery administered to almost 400 children aged 7 to 13 years. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that pragmatic and core language domains could be measured separately, but that both domains were highly related (r = .79). However, zero-order correlations between pragmatic tests were quite small, indicating that task-specific skills played an important role in performance, and follow-up exploratory factor analysis suggested that pragmatics might be best understood as a family of skills rather than a domain. This means that these different pragmatic skills may have different cognitive underpinnings and also need to be assessed separately. However, our overall results supported the idea that pragmatic and core aspects of language are closely related during development, with one area scaffolding development in the other.

scholarly journals The Pragmatic Language Skills of Severely Neglected 42-Month-Old Children: Results of the ELLAN Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mélissa Di Sante ◽  
Audette Sylvestre ◽  
Caroline Bouchard ◽  
Jean Leblond
Keyword(s):  
Social Communication ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Old French ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Social Communication Skills ◽  
Pragmatic Language Skills ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Pragmatic Skills ◽  
Neglected Children

The goals of this study were twofold: (1) to compare the pragmatic language skills (i.e., social communication skills) of 42-month-old neglected children with those of same-aged non-neglected children and (2) to measure the prevalence of pragmatic difficulties among the neglected children. The study sample was composed of 45 neglected and 95 non-neglected 42-month-old French-speaking children. The Language Use Inventory: French (LUI-French) was completed with all parents. This measure, comprised of 159 scored items divided into 10 subscales, was used to assess the children’s pragmatic skills. The 10th percentile on the LUI-French (95% confidence interval ) was used to identify children with pragmatic difficulties. The neglected children had lower scores than the non-neglected children on all 10 dimensions of pragmatics evaluated ( p < .01), as well as lower LUI-French Total Scores ( p < .001). The effect sizes of these differences varied between 0.84 and 2.78. Forty-four percent of the neglected children presented significant pragmatic difficulties compared to 4.2% of their non-neglected peers ( p < .001). It can be concluded that exposure to neglect significantly compromises children’s pragmatic skills. These results support the need for interventions geared toward neglected children and their families to support the early development of their pragmatic skills.

scholarly journals Pragmatic Language Skills: A Comparison of Children With Cochlear Implants and Children Without Hearing Loss

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Socher ◽  
Björn Lyxell ◽  
Rachel Ellis ◽  
Malin Gärskog ◽  
Ingrid Hedström ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Pragmatic Language Skills

Training Pragmatic Language Skills through Alternate Strategies with a Blind Multiply Handicapped Child

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 109-112
Author(s):  
C.J. Evans ◽  
C.J. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Handicapped Child ◽  
Pragmatic Language ◽  
Searching Behavior ◽  
Communicative Responses ◽  
Teaching Manual ◽  
Acquisition Strategies ◽  
Pragmatic Language Skills ◽  
Blind Children

A blind multiply handicapped preschool child was taught to respond appropriately to two adjacency pair types. Where Question - Answer and Comment - Acknowledgement. Training involved teaching manual searching behavior as an alternate strategy for visual searching in response to “where” questions. Echolalic responses to comments initially served only a turn-taking function but, through explicit modification, gradually evolved into more appropriate and communicative responses. The blind child's appropriate responses to trained adjacency pair types increased significantly over the 14-week treatment period. The success of this program augers well for future efforts to develop communication-based interventions that incorporate the alternate language acquisition strategies available to blind children.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document