Comprehension and production of clitics in high functioning children with Autism:

1. Comprehension and production of clitics in high functioning children with Autism: Impaired syntax, discourse/pragmatics or prosody? Arhonto Terzi, TEI Western Greece, Patras Theodoros Marinis, University of Reading Konstantinos Francis, University of Athens GALA, Nantes, 10-12/9/2015

2. Introduction • Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disorder characterized by atypical communication, and restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (ICD-10, WHO 1993). • Language delays and impairments are also be part of the spectrum. • However, research on language in autism has mainly focused on pragmatics and prosody.

3. Introduction • Recently, grammar has been investigated, with mixed findings. • Some claim that basic grammatical knowledge is generally intact in children with ASD. Grammatical problems are related to pragmatic challenges (e.g., Naigles, 2013). • Others argue that the grammatical development of children with ASD is atypical (LeNormand et al., 2013; Perovic et al., 2013b).

4. Language in autism English speaking children with autism: lower performance in some domains of grammar: • Tense morphology (optional infinitive), therefore, similarities with SLI in this respect (Roberts et al. 2004); • Passive sentences (Perovic et al. 2008); • Detecting violations (only) on two phenomena/omissions: -s, -ing (Eigsti & Bennetto 2009); • Reference of reflexive pronouns (Principle A of Binding Theory) (Perovic et al., 2013a; 2013b).

5. Language in autism Aims of this study: • Investigate the acquisition of syntax in Greek-speaking high functioning children with ASD; • Clarify on selective syntactic deficits of high-functioning children with ASD, and their potential relationship with other domains of language (pragmatics, prosody).

6. Language in autism: Greek Recent work on high functioning Greek-speaking children with autism reveals: Relative strengths: • Comprehension of reflexive and full pronouns; • Detecting case marking violations (Terzi, et al., 2012; 2014); • Pragmatic abilities – speech acts, question asking(Marinis, et al., 2013). Relative weaknesses: • Comprehension and production of clitic pronouns (Terzi, et al., 2012; 2014); • Pragmatic abilities – contrastive reference, coherence in narratives (Marinis, et al., 2013).

7. Language in autism: clitics Difficulties with pronominal clitics may reflect incomplete knowledge of the use of clitics due to: • A syntactic deficit. • Lack of knowledge of the discourse/pragmatic conditions under which clitics are used. • Lack of knowledge of the intonation patterns with which clitics are (or, are not) associated. Research Questions: • Are the difficulties only with clitics or also with DPs? • Do the difficulties reflect deficits in morpho-syntax, syntax, pragmatics or prosody? The answers are of interest beyond Greek.

8. Language in autism: clitics Clitic environments A study of where clitics should or cannot be used. • Simple Clitics Non-stress bearing elements, referring to a salient element in the discourse. (Anagnostopoulou 2007; Mavrogiorgos 2010 after Heim’s 1982 Prominence Condition) • Clitic Left Dislocation Displaced DP in the beginning of the sentence. DP conveys old information, and is not the result of movement. DP and clitic are nevertheless related (via a predication chain). (Anagnostopoulou 1999; Cinque 1997)

9. Language in autism: clitics Non-clitic environments • Simple DPs Referring expressions usually providing new information. • Focused DPs Displaced DPs in sentence initial position. DP bears special intonation (Focus accent), conveys new information and contrasts with an implicitly mentioned entity. The result of movement. No clitic is allowed. (Cinque 1997; Rizzi 1997)

10. The current study: Participants • 20 high functioning children with ASD, Age: 5;5 to 8;8 years (Μ: 6;11, SD: 13.9, in months). Previous study: 20 children, Mean age: 6;08) • 20 TD children, Age: 5;1 to 8;2 years (M: 6;7, SD:11.5, in months) Previous study: 20 children, Mean age: 6;09) ASD children were diagnosed with DSM-IV-TR criteria and ADOS (Lord et al. 2000) Each child with autism was matched with a TD child on the Greek PPVT (+/- 5 points).

11. The current study: baseline tasks • Baseline tasks • Non-verbal abilities (Raven, 1998); • Vocabulary (Greek PPVT); • Morpho-syntax (DVIQ: Stavrakaki & Tsimpli, 2000). • Working Memory • Listening span • Digit ordering span

12. The current study: experimental tasks • Comprehension (picture selection) • a) Clitics, b) Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD). • Pseudo-random presentation of items. • Production (with pictures) • a) Clitics, b) DPs, c) CLLD, d) Focus, e) DPs. • Conditions presented in blocks • For each task (comprehension & production): • 2 practice items; • 6 items per condition;

13. Results – baseline tasks 1 Raven’s colour matrices 2 Greek PPVT 3 DVIQ

14. Clitics: comprehension (Terzi, et al., 2012; 2014) Clitics O papus ton skepazi. the-nom grandpa-nom him-acc covers ‘Grandpa covers him.’

15. Clitics: production – answer a question Clitics (Chondrogianni, Marinis, Edwards & Blom, 2014) [Introduction : Here is a wolf and a cat.] Question: What does the wolf do to the cat? Target answer: Τi filai. her-acc kisses ‘He kisses her.’

16. Results – Clitics Main effect of Group: TD children > ASD children Main effect of task: Comprehension > Production

17. Clitics: comprehension errors O papus ton skepazi. the-nom grandpa-nom him-acc covers ‘Grandpa covers him.’ 7/0

18. Clitics: production errors Introduction : Here is a wolf and a cat. Question: What does the wolf do to the cat? Target answer: Τifilai. her-acc kisses ‘(He) kisses her.’ Error types DP: Filai ti gata[=kisses the cat] Omission: Filai [=kisses] 14/7 Out of 116 3/0 Out of 119

19. CLLD: comprehension Clitic Left Dislocation Ton papu ton skepazi. the-acc grandpa-acc him-acc covers ‘He covers grandpa.’

20. CLLD: production – answer a question, sentence completion task Clitic Left Dislocation Introduction : Here is a cat, a wolf, and a goat. Question: Who kisses the cat? Target answer: Τi gata …. ti filai o likos. the cat her-acc kisses the wolf. ‘It is the wolf that kisses her.’

21. Results – Clitic Left Dislocation No main effect of Group, task or interactions: All groups perform equally well in the two conditions.

22. DPs: production – answer a question Full DPs (1) [Introduction : Here is a wolf and a cat.] Question: What does the wolf do? Target answer: Agaliazi tigata. hugs the cat ‘He hugs the cat.’

23. DPs: production – answer a question Full DPs (2) [Introduction : Look at this picture.] Question: What does the wolf do? Target answer: Agaliazi tigata. hugs the cat ‘He hugs the cat.’

24. Focus: production – answer a question, completion task Focus [Introduction : Here is a sheep, a wolf and a cat.] Question: Who is the wolf hugging? Target answer: TI GATA … agaliazi o likos. the cat hugs the wolf ‘It is the cat that the wolf hugs.’ Prosodic cues of focused DP make the use of clitic ungrammatical

25. Results – DPs vs. Focus Main effect of type Type x Group interaction: the two groups perform differently: For DP1 and DP2: ASD = TD For focus: ASD < TD TD children: DP1 < DP2 = focus ASD children: DP1=focus < DP2 Both groups benefit from context, fewer errors on DP2 than on DP1

26. DP1: production errors [Introduction : Here is a wolf and a cat.] Question: What does the wolf do? Target answer: Agaliazi tigata. hugs the cat ‘He hugs the cat.’ Error types: Clitic: Tin agaliazi. [=her hugs] Reversal: Tin agaliazi i gata.[=her hugs the cat] Omission: Agaliazi.[=hugs] 50/4/2 Out of 117 75/1 Out of 119 Mostly use of clitics in both groups

27. DP2: production errors Question: What does the wolf do? Target answer: Agaliazi tigata. hugs the cat ‘(He) hugs the cat.’ Error types: Clitic: Tin agaliazi. [=her hugs] Reversal: Tin agaliazi i gata.[=her hugs the cat] Omission: Agaliazi. [=hugs] 3/4/3 Out of 119 Both groups benefit from context, fewer errors in DP2 than DP1, but ASD also reversals 8/3 Out of 120

28. Introduction : Here is a sheep, a wolf and a cat. Question: Who is the wolf hugging? Target answer: TI GATA … agaliazi o likos. the cat hugs the wolf ‘It is the cat that the wolf hugs.’ Error types: Clitic: TI GATA … tin agaliazi o likos. Reversal: TI GATA … tin agaliazi to liko. SVO: TI GATA … o likos agaliazi ti gata. Focus: production errors 15/3/10 Out of 102 4/3/2 Out of 92 Mostly use of clitics in both groups

29. summary • Children with ASD: • Simple clitics: difficulties in comprehension (reversal) and production (DPs and omissions); • CLLD: Relatively high comprehension and production (no difference from TD children); • DPs:sensitive to the context in the production of DPs (very few errors, similar to TD; different errors depending on the discourse); • Focus constructions: they don’t benefit from intonation in the production of (errors: clitics, SVO).

30. Problems with morpho-syntax of clitics? NO summary

31. Problems with discourse? NO summary

32. Problems with prosody? Possible or a combination of several factors summary

33. Greek-speaking high-functioning children with ASD have difficulties not only with clitics but also with DPs; • Clitics: not-sensitive to the context of clitics (perhaps problems with Salience Condition, Heim 1982) • DPs: • Prosody or Movement or both; • Difficulty to map Focus accent to new information; • Aligning syntactic, discourse, prosodic information. CONCLUSION

34. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research has been co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund - ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program: ARCHIMEDES III. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund. We thank: • Τhe clinics in Athens and Patras. • Τhe6th and the 19th andPublic Schools and the 42nd Public kindergarten in Patras. • Τhe children that participated and their parents.