Toddlers with ASD can use language to update their expectations about the world [post]

Allison Fitch, Annalisa Valadez, Patricia A. Ganea, Alice Carter, Zsuzsa Kaldy
2018 unpublished
This study examined if two-year-olds with ASD can update mental representations on the basis of verbal input. In an eye-tracking study, toddlers with ASD and typically-developing nonverbal age-matched controls were exposed to visual or verbal information about a change in a recently encoded scene, followed by an outcome that was either congruent or incongruent with that information. Findings revealed that both groups looked longer at incongruent outcomes, regardless of information modality, and
more » ... despite the fact that toddlers with ASD had significantly lower measured verbal abilities than TD toddlers. This demonstrates that, although there is heterogeneity on the individual level, young toddlers with ASD can succeed in updating their mental representations on the basis of verbal input in a low-demand task.
doi:10.31234/osf.io/6wfkt fatcat:do4zcx4dx5b5deabfic67l6dtq