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

    Bedford, Rachael and Gliga, Teodora and Frame, K. and Hudry, K. and Chandler, S. and Johnson, Mark H. and Charman, T. (2012) Failure to learn from feedback underlies word learning difficulties in toddlers at risk for autism. Journal of Child Language 40 (S01), pp. 29-46. ISSN 0305-0009.

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    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.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Brain and Cognitive Development, Centre for (CBCD)
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 23 Mar 2012 11:13
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:57
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4665

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