23.1864, Diss: Cog Sci/Pragmatics/Psycholing/Text/Corpus Ling: Wicklund: 'Use of Referring Expressions by Autistic Children in Spontaneous Conversations: Does impaired metarepresentational ability affect reference production?'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-1864. Thu Apr 12 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.1864, Diss: Cog Sci/Pragmatics/Psycholing/Text/Corpus Ling: Wicklund: 'Use of Referring Expressions by Autistic Children in Spontaneous Conversations: Does impaired metarepresentational ability affect reference production?'

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Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:03:17
From: Mark Wicklund [wicklinguist at gmail.com]
Subject: Use of Referring Expressions by Autistic Children in Spontaneous Conversations: Does impaired metarepresentational ability affect reference production?

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Institution: University of Minnesota at Twin Cities 
Program: Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Mark Wicklund

Dissertation Title: Use of Referring Expressions by Autistic Children in
Spontaneous Conversations: Does impaired
metarepresentational ability affect reference production? 

Dissertation URL:  http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/120991

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
                     Pragmatics
                     Psycholinguistics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics


Dissertation Director(s):
Jeanette K. Gundel

Dissertation Abstract:

References that speakers make can include both conceptual information,
which contributes to explicatures, and procedural information, which
constrains explicatures (Wilson & Sperber 1993). The current study compares
the references made by autistic and typically developing children in
naturally occurring conversational settings, with an understanding of
pronouns and determiners (following Gundel et al. 1993) as procedural
markers of an intended referent's cognitive status in the minds of
listeners. The result is an exploration of how the metarepresentational
impairment associated with autism affects procedural and conceptual aspects
of reference production in an unstructured context that many researchers
recommend to better observe how autistic children handle the pragmatic
challenges presented in everyday life.

Results support a hypothesis that most day-to-day uses of pronouns and
determiners do not involve metarepresentational consideration of the mental
states of one's listeners. However, analysis of references to entities
judged to be in the current focus of listener attention suggests that
autistic children are impaired in recognizing what information regarding
cognitive status and conceptual content listeners require. Possible
explanations are considered, including: impaired metarepresentational
mindreading ability limits appreciation of listener needs; early joint
attention impairment interferes with recognition of references as
intentional acts and subsequent acquisition of pronouns and determiners as
procedural markers of referent cognitive status; and as a connectivity
disorder, impairment in autism is most manifest when the need for
high-level integrative processing is greatest. Monitoring relevant
reference information in unstructured social situations strains the
integrative processing ability of autistic children, resulting in
tendencies toward over- and underspecification. 






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