Are Children With Autism More Likely to Retain Object Names When Learning From Colour Photographs or Black-and-White Car
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Are Children With Autism More Likely to Retain Object Names When Learning From Colour Photographs or Black‑and‑White Cartoons? Cheriece K. Carter1 · Calum Hartley1 Accepted: 23 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract For the first time, this study investigated whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children matched on language comprehension (M age equivalent = ~ 44 months) are more likely to retain words when learning from colour photographs than black-and-white cartoons. Participants used mutual exclusivity to fast map novel wordpicture relationships and retention was assessed following a 5-min delay. Children with ASD achieved significantly greater retention accuracy when learning from photographs rather than cartoons and, surprisingly, responded more accurately than TD children when learning from photographs. Our results demonstrate that children with ASD benefit from greater iconicity when learning words from pictures, providing a data-grounded rationale for using colour photographs when administering picture-based interventions. Keywords Autism spectrum disorder · Word learning · Iconicity · Fast mapping · Retention · Pictures Language acquisition is a crucial developmental milestone that underpins children’s cognitive and social development (Carpenter et al. 1998; Tomasello 2003; Vygotsky 1962). Effective communication and engagement with the social world is facilitated by a child’s capacity to learn words, a skill which can be profoundly impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Tager-Flusberg and Kasari 2013). While the onset of speech in typically developing children (TD) occurs around 12–18 months (Tager-Flusberg et al. 2009; Zubrick et al. 2007), many children with ASD experience delays in acquiring language, often producing their first words around 36–38 months (Anderson et al. 2007; Howlin et al. 2009). Although the majority of individuals with ASD develop functional language skills over the school years (Pickles et al. 2014), approximately 25–30% remain minimally verbal or non-verbal (Bal et al. 2016; Norrelgen et al. 2015; Tager-Flusberg and Kasari 2013). Many of these children are taught to communicate using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS; Bondy and Frost 1994), however, research suggests that children with ASD and concomitant language impairments can have difficulty understanding * Cheriece K. Carter [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancashire LA1 4YF, UK
symbolic relationships between words, pictures, and objects (Hartley and Allen 2014a, 2014b, 2015a, 2015b; Preissler 2008). To inform the design and delivery of picture-based interventions, it is essential for research to explore how children acquire vocabulary from pictures. The purpose of the present study is to investigate how ASD impacts children’s ability to learn words from pictures that vary on the dimension of iconicity—the extent to which a symbol resembles its intended referent. To acquire vocabulary, chi
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