Title: Conversational alignment in children with an Autistic Spectrum Condition and typically developing children
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: Conversational deficits are often the first thing people notice about children with an autism spectrum condition (ASC), which affects around 1% of the population. Many ASC children experience communication difficulties and unrewarding interactions, and in turn people who interact with ASC children often find their conversations awkward. These conversational deficits have been linked to impaired theory of mind (ToM), the ability to attribute thoughts and feelings to others. But it is not clear exactly how these impairments might affect their communication, and particularly language production. Our research investigates ASC children's conversational deficits by focusing on conversational alignment: the tendency for partners to imitate each other's use of language (e.g., word choice and grammar). Such alignment appears to be important for both effective communication and satisfying interactions. Our research examines whether ASC children show disturbed patterns of alignment, in ways that might explain some of their communication difficulties. We investigate whether ASC children spontaneously align with a conversational partner, and whether they do so in the same ways as typically developing (TD) children. By examining alignment under different conditions, we can draw inferences about the nature of their communicative impairments. Our research focuses on the relationship between alignment and two factors where we might expect differences between ASC and TD children: 'audience design' and social-affective goals. Previous research suggests that although speakers may align just because they have heard a word or a structure before (and so have been 'primed' to re-use it), they also align in order to achieve particular goals, in ways that may implicate ToM. For example, they may adapt their language according to what they think their partner will best understand (audience design). They may also be guided by the desire to build a stronger relationship with their partner (i.e., social-affective goals), imitating their partner's language to express affiliation. ToM and social-affective impairments are common in ASC, and we hypothesise that ASC children may therefore showed a reduced tendency to align with a partner, compared to TD children. We consider this issue in two separate strands. The first strand investigates whether and how far audience design influences ASC children's alignment. Specifically, we ask whether there is a relationship between alignment and ASC children's ability to adopt another person's perspective during language production. In TD children, perspective-taking is guided by inhibitory control (IC). ASC children have poor IC, which could explain why some who pass ToM tasks nonetheless display conversational deficits. We aim to discriminate effects of ToM and IC impairment on ASC children's communication. The second strand builds on findings that typical speakers show a two-way relationship between affiliation and imitation: greater affiliation leads to more imitation and vice versa. We hypothesise that ASC children will show a weaker relationship between alignment (linguistic imitation) and social-affective factors, so that they will be less responsive to their partner's behaviour. This research will complement a limited literature on how affective impairments might contribute to ASC children's communication difficulties. In sum, our research will deepen our understanding of whether and how different aspects of impaired social understanding impact ASC children's language processing in conversation. If ASC children align in an atypical way, this could help explain why and under what circumstances communication is difficult for them, and why their conversational partners in turn find their interactions odd and unrewarding. Our findings will also cast light on TD children's language production in conversation, and so are relevant to the study of alignment, and social imitation more broadly.


Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH