Friend matters: sex differences in social language during autism diagnostic interviews

Background Autistic individuals frequently experience social communication challenges. Girls are diagnosed with autism less often than boys even when their symptoms are equally severe, which may be due to insufficient understanding of the way autism manifests in girls. Differences in the behavioral presentation of autism, including how people talk about social topics, could contribute to these persistent problems with identification. Despite a growing body of research suggesting that autistic girls and boys present distinct symptom profiles in a variety of domains, including social attention, friendships, social motivation, and language, differences in the way that autistic boys and girls communicate verbally are not yet well understood. Closely analyzing boys’ and girls’ socially-focused language during semi-structured clinical assessments could shed light on potential sex differences in the behavioral presentation of autistic individuals that may prove useful for identifying and effectively supporting autistic girls. Here, we compare social word use in verbally fluent autistic girls and boys during the interview sections of the ADOS-2 Module 3 and measure associations with clinical phenotype. Methods School-aged girls and boys with autism (N = 101, 25 females; aged 6–15) were matched on age, IQ, and parent/clinician ratings of autism symptom severity. Our primary analysis compared the number of social words produced by autistic boys and girls (normalized to account for differences in total word production). Social words are words that make reference to other people, including friends and family. Results There was a significant main effect of sex on social word production, such that autistic girls used more social words than autistic boys. To identify the specific types of words driving this effect, additional subcategories of friend and family words were analyzed. There was a significant effect of sex on friend words, with girls using significantly more friend words than boys. However, there was no significant main effect of sex on family words, suggesting that sex differences in social word production may be driven by girls talking more about friends compared to boys, not family. To assess relationships between word use and clinical phenotype, we modeled ADOS-2 Social Affect (SA) scores as a function of social word production. In the overall sample, social word use correlated significantly with ADOS-2 SA scores, indicating that participants who used more social words were rated as less socially impaired by clinicians. However, when examined in each sex separately, this result only held for boys. Limitations This study cannot speak to the ways in which social word use may differ for younger children, adults, or individuals who are not verbally fluent; in addition, there were more autistic boys than girls in our sample, making it difficult to detect small effects. Conclusions Autistic girls used significantly more social words than boys during a diagnostic assessment—despite being matched on age, IQ, and both parent- and clinician-rated autism symptom severity. Sex differences in linguistic markers of social phenotype in autism are especially important in light of the late or missed diagnoses that disproportionately affect autistic girls. Specifically, heightened talk about social topics could complicate autism referral and diagnosis when non-clinician observers expect a male-typical pattern of reduced social focus, which autistic girls may not always exhibit.

782 Sleep restriction reduces feelings of interpersonal connectedness and social motivation

Introduction Feeling socially connected with others is essential for promoting and maintaining psychological health. Emerging research suggests that insufficient sleep may result in deleterious social outcomes such as greater reactivity to stressful social situations. However, little is known regarding how sleep may impact motivation to feel connected with others, and experiences of connectedness after positive social interactions. Methods Healthy participants (N = 56; 83.9% female, ages 18–30) were randomly assigned to one night of sleep restriction (SR, 4 h) or a night of typical sleep (TS, 8 h) in a controlled laboratory setting and verified with actigraphy. All participants did not have any known or suspected sleep or psychiatric disorders, were free of medical conditions and current medication use known to impact sleep and/or psychological functioning, and wore an actigraph for one week prior to the experimental night to ensure adequate sleep duration. Following the experimental night, participants reported on their motivation for social connectedness (e.g., “Right now, I would like to be close with friends, family, and significant others.”), and completed a task where they spent 5 minutes writing about a positive interpersonal event. After the task, participants reported on their feelings of interpersonal connectedness. Qualitative text analysis was conducted to extract emotional tone and number of social words used during the task. Results Compared to TS, participants undergoing SR were less motivated to feel connected with others [t(54) = -2.62, p = .01], and reported feeling less social connectedness after the task [t(53) = -2.06, p = .04]. Text analysis revealed no differences in positive or negative emotional tone, but participants in the SR group used less social words when describing their positive interpersonal event [F(1, 53) = 6.65, p = .01], even after adjusting for differences in total number of words used. Conclusion One night of sleep restriction reduces motivation to engage in social interactions, and also results in feeling less connected with others after reflecting on a positive social event. These findings add to a limited body of research on sleep and social experiences and provide further support for the negative psychological effects of sleep loss. Support (if any):

THE ANALYSIS OF VOCATIVES IN THE POEM OF THE COBRA-KING AND THE FROG-KING

This thesis entitled “VOCATIVES FOUND THE POEM OF THE COBRA-KING AND THE FROG-KING” is a study about vocatives in The Poem of The Cobra-King and The Frog-King. The aim of this study is to find out the functions of vocatives and types of vocatives also to find out the most dominant function and type of vocatives in The Poem of The Cobra-King and The Frog-King. The main theory used in supporting this study is a theory of vocatives as proposed by Zwicky (1974) and Bungin (2005). To support this study, the researcher employed a descriptive qualitative method since the data of this study are in the form of text. The result of this study indicates that there are two functions of vocatives found in this poem, such as Calls and Addresses. There are four types of vocatives found in this poem, namely Vocative that describes jobs, Vocative in the use of certain social words, Vocative based on characteristics and identity of the interlocutors, and Vocative based on the group of the interlocutors. The most dominant function of vocative found in this poem is the Addresses function that occurs 90 times or 80.36%, followed by Calls that occurs 22 times or 19.64%. While the most dominant type of vocative found is vocative in the use of social words became the most dominant types that occurs 85 times or 75.89% then followed by vocative based on the characteristics and identity of the interlocutors occurs 21 times or 18.75 %, vocative that describes jobs occurs 3 times or 2.67% and the last vocative based on the group of interlocutors occurs 3 times or 2.67 %.

HOW HOTEL COMPANIES CAN FOSTER CUSTOMER SOCIABILITY BEHAVIOUR ON FACEBOOK?

Social network sites (hereinafter, SNSs) have become extremely popular, playing an important role in consumers’ every day lives. Empowered by SNSs, the customer becomes more active and spends more time with their family, friends or companies online. Therefore, companies seek to encourage online conversations for several beneficial reasons such as maintaining relationships with their customers and achieving customer loyalty. There are no widely accepted characteristics of company messages that foster customer sociability behaviour regarding likes, comments, shares and emotion expressions on Facebook in literature. The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics of company messages that facilitate customer sociability behaviour on Facebook. The current study integrates content analysis and text analysis with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Software (LIWC). The data were obtained from two five-star hotel brands on Facebook from 18th October 2016 to 18th October 2017. A total of 306 messages were collected. The results indicated that social messages generated more consumer likes, comments and emotional expressions on Facebook. The number of likes, comments and emotion expressions can be facilitated by images with humans. Messages accompanied with social words exhibit customer comments and emotion expressions.

Input-output effects in the bilingual first language acquisition of English and Polish

This diary study looks at the acquisition of early words in two bilingual sisters (0;9–2;03.22 and 0;9–1;09.13) exposed to English and Polish from birth. It examines whether their parents’ input recorded on video can explain the proportions of different types of words learnt. Their bias for social words is explained by these words being heard in isolation; that for nouns by competitive proportions of noun types heard in the input. Contrarily, the late acquisition of closed-class items is explained by their high usage rates as part of constructions. Meanwhile, high numbers of early verbs in both children’s Polish are explained by inflected Polish verbs being heard (a) in isolation and (b) at the beginning and end of utterances more frequently than their uninflected English counterparts. These results are discussed within the context of the usage-based theory, with focus on the impact of word types for the acquisition of word groups.

Time-Course of Attentional Bias for Positive Social Words in Individuals with High and Low Social Anxiety

Background: Although accumulating research demonstrates the association between attentional bias and social anxiety, the bias for positive stimuli has so far not been adequately studied. Aims: The aim is to investigate the time-course of attentional bias for positive social words in participants with high and low social anxiety. Method: In a modified dot-probe task, word-pairs of neutral and positive social words were randomly presented for 100, 500, and 1250 milliseconds in a nonclinical sample of students to test their attentional bias. Results: Non-significant interaction of Group × Exposure Duration was found. However, there was a significant main effect of group, with significantly different response latencies between the high social anxiety (HSA) and low social anxiety (LSA) groups in the 100 ms condition, without for 500 or 1250 ms. With respect to attentional bias, the LSA group showed enhanced preferential attention for positive social words to which the HSA group showed avoidance in the 100 ms condition. In the 500 ms condition, preferential attention to positive social words was at trend in the LSA group, relative to the HSA group. Neither group showed attentional bias in the 1250 ms condition. Conclusions: These findings extend recent research about the attention training program and add to the empirical literature suggesting that the initial avoidance of positive stimuli may contribute to maintaining social anxiety.