講座摘要 

Children on the autism spectrum engage in social interactions with lower frequency and in different patterns compared with children who are developing typically.This variation in social engagement has afforded many explorations of the significance social interaction as a mechanism n language acquisition.development. and use. The Longitudinal Study of Early Language is a 20+-years-long multi-domain exploration of the language of children on the autism spectrum. including their comprehension via Intermodal Preferential Looking,their production via naturalistic interactions. and their performance in numerous psycholinguistic and clinical assessments. In this talk I will highlight how comprehension findings demonstrating early acquisition of grammatical constructions. combined with wide heterogeneity in language production by these same children.indicate how social engagement plays a targeted rather than universal role in early language.Moreover,investigations of lexical semantics reveal challenges but also promote reconsideration of the definitions of social strengths and weaknesses in both autistic and non-autistic individuals. 

主講人簡介

 Dr. Letitia Naigles is a Professor of Psychological Sciences at University of Connecticut,current Vice President of the International Association for the Study of Child Language. with prior affiliations at Yale University,Koc University (Turkey). and the MIND Institute (UCDavis). She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and holds two UConn Excellence in Research awards (2017. 2019).Dr.Naigles has been engaged for 20 years in an intensive longitudinal investigation of language development by children on the autism spectrum,which has innovated the use of online looking methods to assess language in this population.