Small Semantic Networks in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder Without Intellectual Impairment: A Verbal Fluency A
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Small Semantic Networks in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder Without Intellectual Impairment: A Verbal Fluency Approach Felicitas Ehlen1,2,3 · Stefan Roepke3 · Fabian Klostermann1,4 · Irina Baskow3,5 · Pia Geise3,6 · Cyril Belica7 · Hannes Ole Tiedt1 · Behnoush Behnia3
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience a variety of symptoms sometimes including atypicalities in language use. The study explored differences in semantic network organisation of adults with ASD without intellectual impairment. We assessed clusters and switches in verbal fluency tasks (‘animals’, ‘human feature’, ‘verbs’, ‘r-words’) via curve fitting in combination with corpus-driven analysis of semantic relatedness and evaluated socio-emotional and motor action related content. Compared to participants without ASD (n = 39), participants with ASD (n = 32) tended to produce smaller clusters, longer switches, and fewer words in semantic conditions (no p values survived Bonferroni-correction), whereas relatedness and content were similar. In ASD, semantic networks underlying cluster formation appeared comparably small without affecting strength of associations or content. Keywords ASD · Verbal fluency · Mental lexicon · Clusters · WCC
Introduction
Hannes Ole Tiedt and Behnoush Behnia contributed equally to the study. * Felicitas Ehlen [email protected] 1
Present Address: Department of Neurology, Motor and Cognition Group, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF), Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany
2
Present Address: Department of Psychiatry, Jüdisches Krankenhaus Berlin, Heinz‑Galinski‑Straße 1, 13347 Berlin, Germany
3
Department of Psychiatry, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin (CBF), Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany
4
Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
5
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität Zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
6
Present Address: Universität Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469 Potsdam, Germany
7
Department of Digital Linguistics, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, R5, 6‑13, 68161 Mannheim, Germany
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is understood as a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterised by difficulties in social interaction and communication as well as stereotyped patterns of behaviour or restricted interests. Clinical presentation and individual symptom severity are highly variable and range from circumscribed atypicalities with normal or superior intelligence to severe impairments in daily living which can be accompanied by intellectual impairments (American Psychiatric Association 2013; Masi et al. 2017). Difficulties in language (Groen et al. 2008) and motor functions (Fournier et al. 2010) are commonly associated with ASD. During the last decades, prevalence has increased and is currently estimated to be up to 1 in 59 children with a predo
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