Grammatical abilities of Greek-speaking children with autism

This study investigates pronoun reference and verbs with non-active morphology in high functioning Greek-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). It is motivated by problems with reflexive pronouns demonstrated by English-speaking children with ASD, and the fact that reflexivity is additionally expressed via non-active (reflexive) verbs in Greek. Twenty 5- to 8-year-old children with ASD and twenty vocabulary matched typically developing controls of the same age range completed a sentence-picture matching, an elicitation, and a judgment task. Children with ASD did not differ from controls in interpreting reflexive and strong pronouns, but were less accurate in the comprehension of clitics and omitted clitics in their production. The findings render clitics a vulnerable domain for autism in Greek, and potentially for other languages with clitics, and suggest that this could be a consequence of difficulties in the syntax-pragmatics or the syntax-phonology interface. The two groups did not differ in the comprehension of non-active morphology, but were less accurate in passive than reflexive verbs. This difference is likely to stem from the linguistic representation associated with each type of verb, rather than their input frequency.

Second language influence on first language motion event encoding and categorization in Spanish-speaking children learning L2 English

Studies show cross-linguistic differences in motion event encoding, such that English speakers preferentially encode manner of motion more than Spanish speakers, who preferentially encode path of motion. Focusing on native Spanish speaking children (aged 5;00-9;00) learning L2 English, we studied path and manner verb preferences during descriptions of motion stimuli, and tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by investigating categorization preferences in a non-verbal similarity judgement task of motion clip triads. Results revealed L2 influence on L1 motion event encoding, such that bilinguals used more manner verbs and fewer path verbs in their L1, under the influence of English. We found no effects of linguistic structure on non-verbal similarity judgements, and demonstrate for the first time effects of L2 on L1 lexicalization in child L2 learners in the domain of motion events. This pattern of verbal behaviour supports theories of bilingual semantic representation that postulate a merged lexico-semantic system in early bilinguals.

Production of definite and indefinite articles in typically developing English-speaking children and children with SLI

The present paper examines the production of definite and indefinite articles in English-speaking typically developing (TD) children and children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Twenty four English-speaking children with SLI (mean age: 7;5), twenty nine TD age-matched (TD-AM) children (mean age: 7;5) and eleven younger (mean age: 5;5) TD vocabulary-matched (TD-VM) children participated in a production task involving short stories without picture props based on Schafer and de Villiers (2000). Article production was examined in two different semantic contexts for the definite article, namely in the anaphoric and the bridging context. In the anaphoric condition, definiteness is established via linguistic means, whereas in the bridging condition via shared world knowledge. Indefinite article production was examined in the referential specific, non-referential predicational, and non-referential instrumental contexts. The referential specific context involves [+speaker, −hearer] knowledge and the non-referential predicational and instrumental [−speaker, −hearer] knowledge. Results showed that in the definite article contexts, all three groups performed better on the bridging compared with the anaphoric condition; in the indefinite article contexts, they had better performance on the non-referential predicational vs. the referential specific and the non-referential instrumental conditions. In terms of errors, the TD-VM children and the children with SLI produced significantly more substitutions than the TD-AM children in the definite article contexts. In the indefinite article contexts, the three groups did not differ in terms of accuracy or error patterns. The present results point towards problems in the discourse integration of entities that are part of the speaker's and hearer's knowledge in children with SLI and TD-VM controls, especially in definite articles. These problems are accentuated in the children with SLI due to their grammatical impairment and suggest that children with SLI exhibit a delayed acquisition profile.

Incremental processing in head-final child language: online comprehension of relative clauses in Turkish-speaking children and adults

The present study investigates the parsing of pre-nominal relative clauses (RCs) in children for the first time with a realtime methodology that reveals moment-to-moment processing patterns as the sentence unfolds. A self-paced listening experiment with Turkish-speaking children (aged 5–8) and adults showed that both groups display a sign of processing cost both in subject and object RCs at different points through the flow of the utterance when integrating the cues that are uninformative (i.e., ambiguous in function) and that are structurally and probabilistically unexpected. Both groups show a processing facilitation as soon as the morphosyntactic dependencies are completed and parse the unbounded dependencies rapidly using the morphosyntactic cues rather than waiting for the clause-final filler. These findings show that five-year-old children show similar patterns to adults in processing the morphosyntactic cues incrementally and in forming expectations about the rest of the utterance on the basis of the probabilistic model of their language.

Pragmatic abilities of high-functioning Greek-speaking children with autism

This paper reports on the findings of the pragmatic abilities of Greek-speaking children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Twenty high functioning children with ASD and their typically developing age and vocabulary controls were administered a pragmatics task. The task was based on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV) in the context of a larger study targeting the grammar of Greek-speaking children with autism, and assessed the children’s abilities in communicative role taking, narrative, and question asking. The children with ASD showed an uneven profile in their pragmatic abilities. The two groups did not differ in communicative role taking and question asking. However, the children with ASD had difficulties on the narrative task, and more specifically, on the items assessing reference contrast and temporal links. Yet, they performed similarly on the mental state representations and the false beliefs items. Despite their good performance on mental states and false beliefs, the ASD children’s lower performance on reference contrast can be interpreted via Theory of Mind deficits if we assume that the former involve an additional level of complexity; namely, quantifying the amount of information available to the listener. Lower performance on temporal links is in line with the ASD children’s attested difficulties in organizing events into a coherent gist. Their overall profile, and, in particular, the dissociation between the different sections of the task, does not support single deficit accounts. It rather indicates that the deficits of individuals with ASD stem from distinct deficits in core cognitive processes (Happé & Frith, 2006).

Genusperspektiv i historieläromedel - finns det? : En jämförande analys av fem läroböcker i historia för gymnasiet utgivna under åren 1995-2004

Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att studera om det finns något genusperspektiv i valda nedslag i gymnasieläroböcker i ämnet historia. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna och definitionerna har hämtats i Micael Nilssons rapport Historia ur ett genusperspektiv – En granskning av genusaspekterna i ämnet historia vid Linköpings universitet. Materialet har kategoriserats i tre olika perspektiv; kvinnohi-storiskt perspektiv, jämställdhetsperspektiv och genusperspektiv. Litteraturen har därefter place-rats i den så kallade genustrappan som i Nilsson version består av fem olika steg; genusmedveten, jämställdhetsmedveten, könsmedveten, könsomedveten eller könsmakts-förstärkande. Det un-dersökta materialet har bestått av fem läroböcker som behandlar A-kursen i historia. Läroböcker-na är utgivna på fem olika förlag, ingen av dem har en ensam författare och tre av böckerna har en kvinnlig medförfattare. Undersökningen är baserad på både den kvalitativa och den kvantitati-va metoden. Den kvantitativa delen av undersökning har gått ut på att räkna antal kvinnonamn i böckernas register och antal illustrationer som innehåller kvinnor. I den kvalitativa delen av un-dersökningen har material om kvinnor samt kvinnors situation i kapitlen om antikens Grekland, nordisk medeltid och industrialismen analyserats. Undersökningen visar att läroböckerna repre-senterar en historieskrivning som i stora drag lämnar kvinnorna utanför. Ingen av böckerna når upp till kategorien genusmedveten, de två böcker som placerar sig högst når kategorien jäm-ställdhetsmedveten. Resultatet visar att läroböckerna inte lever upp till styrdokumentens krav på en jämställd undervisning.

Miljöperspektiv i historieläroböcker - finns det? : En jämförande undersökning av två gymnasieläroböcker i historia.

Jag hade inte kommit i kontakt med någon undersökning som fokuserat på läroböckers behandling av miljön, vilket lämnade en lucka i forskningen. Syftet med undersökningen blev därmed att försöka fylla denna lucka, vilket skulle uppnås genom att studera två gymnasieläroböcker i historia och deras uttryck för miljöperspektiv. Undersökningens resultat visar att författarna till båda böckerna ger uttryck för miljöperspektiv, men att det är Epos författare som gör detta mest konsekvent. I båda böckerna behandlas människans samspel med naturen främst i äldre kulturer, men även i stor utsträckning i samband med industrialiseringen samt under miljödebatten som växte fram på 1960-talet. Vad det gäller karaktären på de miljöperspektiv som uttrycks så utgår majoriteten av dessa från hur naturen och de omgivande förutsättningarna påverkat människan och dess samhällen. Den andra sidan av myntet, hur människan påverkat naturen, kommer därmed till viss del i skymundan. Den tidsdimension som anläggs i miljöperspektiven är i båda böckerna främst i dåtid och förklarar därmed hur människan påverkat naturen och vice versa i det samhälle som behandlas. Vad det gäller kopplingen mellan då-nu-sedan så är det författarna till Alla tiders historia Maxi som ger uttryck för flest sådana miljöperspektiv, vilket görs i behandlingen av tiden efter 1965.

Multiculturalism and Policymaking : A comparative study of Danish and Swedish cultural policies since 1969

This master’s thesis deals with the cultural diversity policies of Denmark and Sweden within the cultural sector. It attempts at explaining why these two “most-similar” scandinavian countries having in common the same cultural model, “the architect model”, opted for different policies when it came to cultural diversity: Assimilationism for Denmark and multiculturalism for Sweden. I show that though institutional and power-interest factors had an impact, ideas as “programmatic beliefs” (Sheri E. Berman 2001) or “frames” (Erik Bleich 2003) played the ultimate role. I evaluate their relative importance by analyzing the anthropological dimension of the countries cultural policies since 1969. The study confirms that at least in the cultural sector, Danish policies have been assimilationist and Swedish ones multiculturalist and proposes a new classification of terms.By investigating immigrants cultures, it fills a gap left by previous researchers working on a common Nordic cultural model.