Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre
Research projects - Language
Research that investigates how children with autism process the language they hear will help us understand why they often don’t completely understand what others are saying, and why they find it hard to interpret the language used in different social situations. The results of the research can be applied in developing intervention programs designed to help children reach their potential.
Factors that influence language processing
Prof Edith Bavin, A/P Cheryl Dissanayake, Dr Evan Kidd and Prof Margot Prior hold an Australian Research Council Discovery grant to investigate language processing in children with high functioning autism using eye tracking technology. Although children with high functioning autism develop good language production skills, they often do not understand what others say in the same way as non autistic individuals. The study will investigate how visual and verbal information bias 5-7 year old children as they are listening to a verbal message. It will also investigate how memory and attention abilities affect their language processing.
Two postgraduate students, Germaine Gerkis (DPsy) and Heather Nuske (PhD) are also conducting research on language comprehension in autism, both using eye tracking. Germaine’s topic focuses on whether children are primed to particular interpretations by the structure and content of verbal messages they have previously heard. Heather will be extending the research she conducted at La Trobe for her honours thesis, which investigated the Weak Central Coherence Theory (Frith, 1989) in relation to young children’s understanding of short narratives. The theory suggests that individuals with autism focus on details rather than making an overall (global) interpretation of information presented to them. Heather’s research will investigate how young children with autism interpret language in different social interactions.
In addition to these projects, an honours student, Sarah Rostron, is examining the language structures and organizational characteristics of narratives told by children with high functioning autism.