学龄前孤独谱系障碍儿童汉语核心语法的习得研究

For young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), the status of their basic language skills by age five is strongly related to the long-term prognosis of their living functions in the lifespan. Preschool children with ASD normally demonstrate delays in language development, yet whether or not their grammar is also deviant has attracted considerate attention from ASD language researchers. Taking advantage of specific grammatical properties of Mandarin Chinese, the present study attempts to carry out a longitudinal study to investigate the development of core Chinese grammar in 2-5-year-old Mandarin-learning children with ASD and the factors impacting the acquisition process. Specifically, critical components of grammatical comprehension of children with ASD (including children who are minimally verbal) will be tested via the eye-tracking method of Intermodal Preferential Looking; their communicative functions and expressive language levels will be examined in Joint Attention sessions; and the frequencies of the relevant grammatical structures in the language environment will also be analyzed. The overarching goal of this project is to explore the mechanisms underlying the language acquisition process of preschool children with ASD. The main purpose is to test whether preschool children with ASD are capable of utilizing the language faculty to acquire core Chinese grammar via a similar developmental path as the normal children; moreover, it examines the influences of joint attention impairment and language input on the acquisition process of children with ASD. The results will also provide scientific guidance for early language intervention for preschool children with ASD.

孤独谱系障碍(ASD)儿童5岁左右语言能力的发展与其终生的疾病预后水平高度相关。学龄前ASD儿童通常具有语言发展延迟的临床症状，然而是否同时伴随语法范畴内的发展异常是目前学界研究的热点问题。本项目拟利用汉语独特的语法属性，采用多次跟踪评估，动态考察学龄前ASD儿童对汉语核心语法的习得过程及其影响因素。具体内容包括：通过多通道优先注视范式眼动实验跟踪研究2-5岁ASD儿童汉语语法理解程度的发展，包括极低口语水平ASD儿童对核心语法的习得过程；通过共同注意游戏跟踪评估ASD儿童社会交往能力和语言表达水平的发展，同时分析ASD儿童语言环境中相关语法结构的输入频率。本项目旨在探索学龄前ASD儿童语言习得的机制，主要是研究ASD儿童能否利用正常儿童的语言机能，遵循正常儿童相似的轨迹习得核心语法，同时考察共同注意缺陷和语言输入对这一习得过程的影响。结果还将为学龄前ASD儿童的早期语言干预提供依据。

学龄前孤独谱系障碍（ASD）儿童对语言的习得程度是决定ASD儿童早期干预效果和最终预后水平的关键。学龄前ASD儿童在其核心的语用沟通缺陷之外，是否还存在着语法习得异常，尤其是他们如何进行语法加工处理是当前ASD儿童语言研究的前沿问题。本项目结合多种国际权威研究方法系统研究了学龄前ASD儿童对于汉语基本语法的习得及其影响因素，同时还考察了汉语ASD儿童早期语言和沟通的发展水平。具体包括（1）通过多通道优先注视（IPL）眼动实验考察了学龄前ASD儿童对于主谓宾语序、体标记的理解程度,以及ASD儿童能否利用名词偏好来习得语言。结果表明学龄前ASD儿童与典型发展(TD)儿童相似，能掌握基本的语法结构，并遵循相似的规律来习得基本语言。研究表明语言机能在学龄前ASD儿童的语法习得中具有决定性作用，甚至是部分极低口语水平的ASD儿童也具有对基本语法的理解能力。(2）综合分析了影响ASD儿童早期语法习得的多种因素，考察了ASD儿童自身的共同注意能力和语言表达水平、家长语言输入和外部语言环境对于ASD儿童语法习得的影响，发现上述因素对于ASD儿童语法加工的效率有着显著影响。（3）采用《汉语沟通发展量表》（PCDI）全面地评估了ASD儿童早期语言和沟通发展的水平（包括手势沟通、词汇发展、语法表达、语用表达等）。研究表明ASD儿童在早期语言和沟通发展的各个层面均严重滞后于典型发展儿童。同时，ASD儿童语言发展具有高度异质性特征，表现为ASD儿童内部语言发展的多样性，以及ASD儿童在不同语言范畴之间和同一语言范畴之内语言发展的不均衡状态。（4）检验了适合汉语ASD儿童的多种语言评估工具（例如：IPL眼动装置、PCDI量表等），并探讨了ASD儿童（包括极低口语儿童）早期语言干预的方案。本研究首度结合多元方法对汉语ASD儿童的早期语法习得及语言沟通水平进行了全面研究，揭示了语言机能对包括ASD儿童在内的人类语言习得的决定性作用，并明确了多种因素对ASD儿童语法加工效率的影响，为阐明学龄前ASD儿童语言发展的高度异质性提供了佐证。