Does language influence the way we see the world? This question has fascinated scholars from the fields of cognitive psychology, linguistics and philosophy for ages. In order to make sense of our...Show moreDoes language influence the way we see the world? This question has fascinated scholars from the fields of cognitive psychology, linguistics and philosophy for ages. In order to make sense of our surroundings, we have to analyse objects that appear into our visual field. This happens during visual perception, a process underlied by a mechanism of separation and binding of object features, according to FIT (Treisman & Gelade, 1980). When creating meaning with language, a similar process takes place. During linguistic combinatorial processes, words are analysed and bound together into grammatical structures. In this study, the link between the two cognitive systems is assessed. We compare visual memory and combinatorial language abilities of children and adults by using a memory game with stimuli with and without overlapping features (colour and shape). To assess grammatical abilities, a grammar test was designed to assess combinatorial language abilities. It was hypothesised that they outperform adults in tasks concerning visual memory and that their visual memory correlated negatively with their grammatical skills. More specifically, we presumed that children would suffer less distraction from overlapping features because of their tendency to analyse the field holistically, without interference of grammatical ‘cognition’. We find that adults outperform children on the grammar test. Furthermore, we found that adults outperform children on the overall memory game. We also found that participants perform better during non-combinatorial trials than during combinatorial trials, in line with the hypothesis of holistic perception in children. However, we found no evidence of an effect of combinatorial language skills on visual memory.Show less
In this research we looked at whether infants (12- to 14-month-old) can succesfully use their lexical knowledge to aid them in acquiring an abstract grammatical rule about visually presented...Show moreIn this research we looked at whether infants (12- to 14-month-old) can succesfully use their lexical knowledge to aid them in acquiring an abstract grammatical rule about visually presented grammars. The infants in the known condition were unable to generalize this grammatical rule. However, there was learning in the nonsense condition.Show less
Almost all children with ASD show impaired language development, probably due to deficits in joint attention skills. This study examines the role of joint attention and parental sensitivity in the...Show moreAlmost all children with ASD show impaired language development, probably due to deficits in joint attention skills. This study examines the role of joint attention and parental sensitivity in the development of expressive and receptive language skills of children with AD and PDD. Sixty-nine children between 16 and 61 months of age and diagnosed with ASD were observed during joint attention tasks and parent-child interactions by using the ESCS and the EAS. Language development was measured with the Dutch versions of the Reynell, the Schlichting and the CDIs. An independent samples t-test show differences in all variables between children with AD and children with PDD. Hierarchical regression analyses show that according to children with PDD, parental sensitivity is the most important predictor of language production and language comprehension; joint attention doesn’t play any role. However, according to children with AD joint attention is a stronger predictor than parental sensitivity, with a more important role for reactive joint attention. Sensitivity predicts the joint attention level in this group. These results could provide handles for developing more specific interventions to foster language development of children with different types of ASD.Show less
There is an increasing amount of research stressing the importance of executive functions in learning during childhood. This study examined i) the relation between executive functioning (working...Show moreThere is an increasing amount of research stressing the importance of executive functions in learning during childhood. This study examined i) the relation between executive functioning (working memory, inhibition problems and dysexecutive behaviour) and the development of receptive and expressive language skills and ii) whether executive functioning predicts the development of language skills. This longitudinal study tested 207 children aged between 4 to 8 years in 2009 (M age =5.28) and again in 2010 (M age =6.42) using a battery of cognitive measures and parent ratings of dysexecutive behaviour of their child. Correlational and regression analyses revealed that working memory was related to both expressive and receptive language, but only predicted the level of receptive language. Inhibition problems were only related to and a predictor of expressive language. Dysexecutive behaviour was not related to language. Implications of the findings for education are discussed.Show less
In onderhavig onderzoek is onderzoek gedaan wat de relatie is tussen joint attention en de taalontwikkeling van kinderen met een autisme spectrum stoornis (ASS) tussen de acht en veertien jaar. Ook...Show moreIn onderhavig onderzoek is onderzoek gedaan wat de relatie is tussen joint attention en de taalontwikkeling van kinderen met een autisme spectrum stoornis (ASS) tussen de acht en veertien jaar. Ook is bepaald of de taalontwikkeling van kinderen met ASS anders is dan die van kinderen zonder ASS. In totaal hebben 26 kinderen met ASS meegedaan en 85 kinderen zonder ASS. Bij de ouders van deze kinderen met ASS is het Autisme Diagnostisch Interview-Revised en de Social Responsiveness Scale afgenomen. Laatstgenoemde is ook door ouders van de controlegroep ingevuld. Bij alle kinderen zijn de subtesten ‘zinnen formuleren’ en ‘woordassociaties’ van de Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4-NL, de subtest ‘woordkennis’ van de Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-III-NL en de subtest ‘verzwegen betekenissen’ van de Taaltest voor Kinderen afgenomen. Uit onderhavig onderzoek blijkt dat kinderen met ASS een significant lagere ontwikkeling hebben dan de kinderen zonder ASS op productieve taal en niet op receptieve taal. De grootste groep kinderen met ASS liet geen initiating joint attention (IJA) zien (57,7%). Respectievelijk liet 23,1% en 19,2% van de kinderen met ASS beperkte IJA en IJA zien. De kinderen met ASS die geen IJA lieten zien hebben een significant lagere taalontwikkeling op productieve taal dan de kinderen zonder ASS. Tussen de andere groepen werden geen significante verschillen gevonden. Voor behandelaars is het belangrijk om op deze uitkomst alert te zijn, omdat behandeling zich meer moet richten op de productieve taal dan de receptieve taal. Ook blijkt vroege stimulering van IJA belangrijk. Er is meer onderzoek nodig om het lange termijn effect van IJA op taal in beeld te brengen.Show less
