Funding gratefully received from the Sick Kids Friends Foundation, Edinburgh.
Language Development and Theory of Mind.
Lianne Carroll, a PhD research student at QMUC, has just completed a longitudinal language study entitled “Language development and its relationship to theory of mind in children with high-functioning autism.” The project began in 2004 and links with the funded Prosody in Autism project at QMUC.
1) The principal research question is whether the skills of children with high-functioning autism change over a 2-year period. Components of language (pragmatics, semantics, grammar, articulation) will be assessed and the scores will be examined individually and in aggregate.
2) The secondary research question is whether if there is poor performance on a prosody assessment (the PEPS-C), there will also be poor performance on a test for theory of mind (ToM) skills.
Prosody refers to changes in intonation, loudness,
stress, and variations in pitch that can have a subtle effect on the meaning
of what is said.
Theory of mind refers to the ability to understand that one individual can
have thoughts, wishes, and perceptions that differ from another individual.
News: Findings from this study will be available very soon.
Click here for pictures drawn by the participants in this project.
Funding gratefully received from the Sick Kids Friends Foundation, Edinburgh.
Useful Links for More Information on Autism
Autism Society
of America
Centre for the Study of Autism
National Alliance for Autism Research
Useful Links for More Information on Theory of Mind
Useful Links for Related Research
Please email Lianne Carroll if you have any questions or comments about her PhD research.
PROSODY AND AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS