汉语自闭症学前儿童语言表达能力实证研究

Expressive Language Abilities of Mandarin-exposed Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD)

自闭症的患病率当前在世界各国均呈现出逐年递增的趋势,而学前自闭症儿童5岁左右时的语言表达能力是预测其疾病康复程度的重要指针。文章首先综述了印欧语系自闭症儿童早期语言表达的发展特征,继而总结了我们近期聚焦于汉语学前自闭症儿童语言表达能力的系列研究,系统地考察了自闭症儿童在词汇、语法、语用沟通等方面的语言表达能力,并对比了自闭症儿童内部以及自闭症儿童与典型发展儿童或是其他语言障碍儿童语言表达的异同。研究结果表明汉语学前自闭症儿童存在着较为严重的语言发展迟缓,同时还兼有语言表达的高度异质性特征。文章进一步强调了汉语学前自闭症儿童早期语言干预的重要性,并为汉语自闭症儿童早期语言干预方案的制定提供了思路。

The global prevalence of autism spectrum disorder(ASD)has increased progressively in recent years.Of note is that expressive language level of fi ve-year-old children with ASD is one of the strongest predictors of outcomes in ASD.Despite the rich literature investigating expressive language development in young children learning Indo-European languages,limited research has explored the current status of the expressive language development of the general population of preschool Chinese children with ASD.The present article fi rst summarizes the characteristics of early expressive language development of preschool children with ASD learning Indo-European languages,and then reviews our recent large-scale studies evaluating expressive language development of the general population of preschool Chinese children with ASD.Specifi cally,adopting the language assessments of the Putonghua Communicative Development Inventory,these studies have evaluated the lexical,grammatical,pragmatic/socially-based subdomains of language in Chinese preschool children with ASD across the spectrum,making comparisons within the ASD group or across populations(with typically developing children or other groups of children with language delay).The results suggest that Chinese preschool children with ASD demonstrate severe delay in expressive language development.Moreover,the children with ASD vary hugely in their expressive language skills,which is manifested in a number of ways including the varied rate of expressive language development,as well as the exhibition of the variability of expressive language development across and within language domains.These fi ndings highlight the urgency of enforcing effi cient early language intervention in Chinese preschool children with ASD;moreover,they also off er specifi c guidance to the language intervention plans for preschool children with ASD in China.