Abstract:

Objective To explore the psychological and behavioral characteristics of understanding Chinese garden path sentences in children with high-functioning autism (HFA). Methods From April to August, 2019, 35 children with HFA and 35 age-matched typically developing (TD) children were recruited by social recruitment method in the Key Laboratory of Speech and Hearing of East China Normal University in Shanghai. The Garden Path Sentence Comprehension Test was designed based on the psycholinguistic method, and the mental process and the ability of understanding garden path sentences were tested by the agent task experiment paradigm. Finally, the processing strategies and error types of Chinese spoken garden path sentences for HFA children were explored. Results The score in understanding garden path sentences was lower (t = -2.941, P < 0.01), and the reaction time in processing garden path sentences was significantly longer (t = 6.132, P < 0.001) in HFA children than in TD children, however, there was no significant difference in the number of childern mastering garden path sentences between two groups (χ² = 2.954, P > 0.05). In terms of the error types of "animate noun + verb + animate noun + 's + noun" (AVA) and "animate noun + verb + inanimate noun + 's + noun" (AVI) garden path sentences, both groups showed more errors in "pursuit of correct word order" than in "pursuit of semantically correct" (t > 2.503, P < 0.05). In "inanimate noun + verb + animate noun + 's + noun" (IVA) sentences, HFA children showed less erros in "pursuit of correct word order" than in "pursuit of semantically correct" (t = -6.523, P < 0.001), however, no difference was found between them in TD children (t = 2.024, P > 0.05). Conclusion The processing and comprehension ability of Chinese spoken garden path sentences in HFA children aged five to seven yeas are poor. HFA children are more sensitive to semantics, and garden path sentences with semantic violations are more likely to lead to HFA children's understanding errors. In the garden path sentence patterns of AVA and AVI, HFA children appear similar sentence understanding and processing strategies as TD children. In the garden path of IVA, HFA children use a sentence processing strategy combining word order and semantics, but semantics play a more prominent role, while TD children use a more stable word order processing strategy.

Key words: high-functioning autism, garden path sentence, characteristics