The Way People with Autism Understand Language

Victoria Yaneva

What Do We Do?

• Support people with autism to live as independently as possible

• Provide activities, events and support for families, as well as an information helpline

• Help people with autism to find and keep a job

• Offer training for parents and professionals

• ....and much more!

Our Vision

A world where all people on the autism spectrum have the specialist care and support they need to lead fulfilling and rewarding lives.

Outline

Introduction

Part I: How autistic people understand language differently from non-autistic people

Part II: …and what can we do to help?

Conclusion

Introduction

Drawing Number One, “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Introduction

Drawing Number Two, “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Why Language Processing Is So Important

• Impairment in reading comprehension has been pointed out as a reason for the lower educational achievements of students with ASD

(Brugha et al., 2007)

• This leads to problems with employment; only 6% of the adults with autism in the UK are employed full-time

(NAS, 2004)

Why Language Processing Is So Important

Due to the language comprehension and reading difficulties they experience, people with ASD are in danger of:

Academic failure

Unemployment

Limited access to information

Social exclusion

II. How People with Autism Understand Language

1. Words and non-words2. Pronouns3. Ambiguous phrases4. Figurative language

Reading Words

A Cup Of Tea

A Cup of Tea

A Cup of Tea

Reading (Non-)Words

Jeist

Clamph

Troin

Frith and Snowling, 1983

Reading Words

• Hyperlexia: the very high ability of some people to decode written words, while they are not that successful in capturing the meaning of a text.

• Is hyperlexia a part of the autism spectrum?

Ambiguous Phrases

• Homophones• Making use of context• Prior knowledge

Figurative Language

A request to “Stick your coat down over there” is met by a serious request for glue. Ask if she will “give you a hand”, and she will answer that she needs to keep both hands and cannot cut one off to give to you. Tell him that his sister is “crying her eyes out” and he will look anxiously on the floor for her eye-balls...

(Happe, 1995)

Idioms

(Whyte et al, 2011)

Exaggeration“Look, there are

millions of dirty dishes in the sink”

• Relatively high level of

complexity

(MacKay and Shaw, 2004)

Understatement

“Just a scratch” Interpretation

• Temporal expressions

“It did not take long”

• Quantity “Just a few things” –

“900 bags”/”half the store”

(MacKay and Shaw, 2004)

Irony and Sarcasm

“Great singing, Jim”

• very high level of complexity

(MacKay and Shaw, 2004)

Metaphor

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree

Albert Einstein

Understanding of metaphor does not improve with age

(Runblad and Annaz, 2010)

III. Strategies to Improve Language Comprehension of People on the Autism Spectrum

1. Do adult readers with high-functioning autism also need reading support at school and at work?

2. Images: helpful or distracting? 3. How to write for readers with autism?4. The role of technology

Do adults with high-functioning (HF) autism also need reading support?

- 20 adults with high-functioning autism and 20 adults without autism

- Mean age for the ASD group: 30.75- Mean age for the non-ASD group: 30.81- Years of schooling ASD group (mean): 15.31- Years of schooling non-ASD group (mean):

17.25(Yaneva, Temnikova and Mitkov, 2015 (to appear))

Do adults with HF autism also need reading support?

Some more information about the participants with high-functioning autism:

- 10 of them were employed full-time at the time of the experiment

- 13 of them had been employed full-time at some point of their lives

- 11 of them in the process of or had received a higher education qualification

Materials: 7 easy-read documents

23NHS, UK

Results: Reading times in adults with HF autism compared to non-autistic adults

24

Results: Text difficulty according to adults with and without autism

25

Do adults with HF autism also need reading support?

26

Do adults with HF autism also need reading support?

A review of 754 studies on the topic of strategies for teaching reading comprehension for people with ASD, states that :

“None of the studies that met criteria for inclusion in this review included individuals with Asperger syndrome”

“Future research is needed to identify instructional methods for promoting reading comprehension in students with

Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism in general education classrooms”

(Chiang and Lin, 2007)

The Role of Images

28NHS, UK

The Role of Images

Question:

Do adults with high-functioning autism spend longer times looking at images compared to

adults without autism?

29

The Role of Images

30

13%20%

Plai

n Te

xt

Phot

ogra

phs

The Role of Images

31

Sym

bols

It m

akes

no

diffe

renc

e to

m

e

How to Write For Readers with Autism

A study with 16 short texts and 20 participants with high-functioning autism

• Types of comprehension skills evaluated:- Literal comprehension- Reorganisation- Gap inferences

(Yaneva and Evans, 2015 (to appear))

How to Write For Readers with Autism

• Put the main verb as close to the beginning of the sentence as possible

• Use sentences with similar syntactic structure• Use less metaphors and figurative language

The Role of Technology

Can Language Assistance Technology help us make language more accessible for people with

autism?

The Role of Technology

Conclusion

Conclusion

• It is absolutely ESSENTIAL for ALL people with autism from ALL RANGES of abilities to receive adequate language assistance

Conclusion

• Awareness of the language comprehension difficulties of people with autism from all over the spectrum should be raised among teachers, lecturers, mentors and employers.

• These professionals should be empowered by adequate training and resources to facilitate comprehension

Conclusion

• Language Assistance Technology has the potential to alleviate the burden posed on teachers, carers and mentors in the educational and work environment.

Conclusion

Environment Matters:Language understanding difficulties may be caused not only by problems with comprehension, but also by the presence of distractors

Conclusion

Autism West MidlandsTel: 0121 450 7582Email: v.yaneva@wlv.ac.ukWeb: www.autismwestmidlands.org.uk