Challenges with computing scalar and ad-hoc implicatures in Mandarin-speaking 4-8-year-old autistic children.

Introduction: Mixed findings have been reported about the computation of scalar or/and ad-hoc implicatures in primarily school-age autistic verbal children and adolescents: while some studies reported their struggles with both implicatures, others observed their strengths in computing scalar implicatures. This study extends the previous investigation by testing the derivation of scalar (including both number and quantifier) and ad-hoc implicatures of a younger group of Mandarin-speaking autistic 4-8-year-olds; moreover, we assess the biological, linguistic, and cognitive factors affecting children's implicature acquisition.

Methods: The participants included 22 4-8-year-old autistic verbal children (mean age = 67.

Expressive Language Profiles in a Clinical Screening Sample of Mandarin-Speaking Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Purpose: This cross-sectional study aimed to depict expressive language profiles and clarify lexical-grammatical interrelationships in Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during the administration of the simplified Chinese Psychoeducational Profile-Third Edition screening.

Method: We collected naturalistic language samples from 81 (74 boys, seven girls) 2- to 7-year-old ( = 55.6 months, = 15.

Early Word Order Usage in Preschool Mandarin-Speaking Typical Children and Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Influences of Caregiver Input?

This study explores the emergence and productivity of word order usage in Mandarin-speaking typically-developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and examines how this emergence relates to frequency of use in caregiver input. Forty-two caregiver-child dyads participated in video-recorded 30-min semi-structured play sessions. Eleven children with ASD were matched with 10 20-month-old TD children and another 11 children with ASD were matched with 10 26-month-old TD children, on expressive language.

Online Processing of Subject-Verb-Object Order in a Diverse Sample of Mandarin-Exposed Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Grammatical comprehension remains a strength in English-exposed young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet limited research has investigated how preschool children with ASD process grammatical structures in real time, in any language. Using the eye-movement measures of Intermodal Preferential Looking, we assessed online processing of subject-verb-object (SVO) order in seventy 2- to 5-year-old children with ASD exposed to Mandarin Chinese across the spectrum, whose vocabulary production scores were dramatically delayed compared with the typical controls. With this Mandarin-exposed sample, we tested the extent to which children with ASD require (a) highly consistent input and/or (b) good discourse/pragmatics for acquiring grammatical structures.

Uneven Expressive Language Development in Mandarin-Exposed Preschool Children with ASD: Comparing Vocabulary, Grammar, and the Decontextualized Use of Language via the PCDI-Toddler Form.

Data from children with ASD who are learning Indo-European languages indicate that (a) they vary hugely in their expressive language skills and (b) their pragmatic/socially-based language is more impaired than their structural language. We investigate whether similar patterns of language development exist for Mandarin-exposed children with ASD. Parent report data of the Putonghua Communicative Development Inventory-Toddler Form were collected from 160 17-83-month-old children with ASD.

Interpretation of Logical Words in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Uncovering Knowledge of Semantics and Pragmatics.

This study investigated the interpretation of the logical words 'some' and 'every…or…' in 4-15-year-old high-functioning Mandarin-speaking children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Children with ASD performed similarly to typical controls in demonstrating semantic knowledge of simple sentences with 'some', and they had delayed knowledge of the complex sentences with 'every…or…'. Interestingly, the children with ASD had pragmatic knowledge of the scalar implicatures of these logical words, parallel to those of the typical controls.

Parent Ratings of ADHD Symptoms in Chinese Urban Schoolchildren: Assessment With the Chinese ADHD Rating Scale-IV: Home Version.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Chinese ADHD Rating Scale-IV (ADHD RS-IV): Home Version and to explore parent ratings of ADHD symptoms in a large sample of urban schoolchildren in China.

Method: Parents of a representative sample of 1,616 schoolchildren (aged 6-17) in 12 Chinese cities completed the ADHD RS-IV: Home Version.

Results: The Chinese ADHD RS-IV: Home Version demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency, test-retest reliability, parent-teacher correlation, discriminant validity, and convergent validity.

Downward entailment in child Mandarin.

There are three hallmarks of core linguistic properties. First, they are expected to be manifested in typologically different languages. Second, they should unify superficially unrelated linguistic phenomena.

Children's use of phonological information in ambiguity resolution: a view from Mandarin Chinese.

How do children develop the mapping between prosody and other levels of linguistic knowledge? This question has received considerable attention in child language research. In the present study two experiments were conducted to investigate four- to five-year-old Mandarin-speaking children's sensitivity to prosody in ambiguity resolution. Experiment 1 used eye-tracking to assess children's use of stress in resolving structural ambiguities.