One of the main problems of autistic children is that it is very difficult for them to switch to a different state, to a different activity – and such switches are often needed. Researchers have recently shown that bilingualism helps autistic children function: namely, it is somewhat easier for bilingual children to switch to a new activity. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this empirical phenomenon. Namely, we show that, in general terms, autism means difficulty with breaking symmetries of a state, and we describe how this general reformulation indeed explains the above recently discovered phenomenon. 1 Formulation of the Problem What is autism: a brief reminder. Autism is defined as a “developmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior”; see, e.g., [1, 7]. Researchers are trying to help. At present, there is no way to completely cure this disorder. However, there are many techniques that help some patients function better – i.e., make it easier for them to switch to a new activity and/or easier to disrupt the repetitive behavior. Can bilingualism help? There is plenty of evidence that, in general, bilingualism – i.e., knowing two languages – helps in problem solving; see, e.g., [2, 3]. Because of this general fact, researchers studying autism decided to check whether a similar improvement can be observed in autistic children. It helps but why? The results of this research [5] show that bilingualism indeed statistically significantly helps bilingual children switch to a new activity: on average, bilingual autistic children performed better on such switching tasks than monolingual ones. These results confirmed anecdotal evidence listed in [6].
{"title":"Why bilingualism helps autistic children function: a symmetry-based explanation","authors":"O. Kosheleva, V. Kreinovich","doi":"10.12988/IMF.2019.81265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.12988/IMF.2019.81265","url":null,"abstract":"One of the main problems of autistic children is that it is very difficult for them to switch to a different state, to a different activity – and such switches are often needed. Researchers have recently shown that bilingualism helps autistic children function: namely, it is somewhat easier for bilingual children to switch to a new activity. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this empirical phenomenon. Namely, we show that, in general terms, autism means difficulty with breaking symmetries of a state, and we describe how this general reformulation indeed explains the above recently discovered phenomenon. 1 Formulation of the Problem What is autism: a brief reminder. Autism is defined as a “developmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior”; see, e.g., [1, 7]. Researchers are trying to help. At present, there is no way to completely cure this disorder. However, there are many techniques that help some patients function better – i.e., make it easier for them to switch to a new activity and/or easier to disrupt the repetitive behavior. Can bilingualism help? There is plenty of evidence that, in general, bilingualism – i.e., knowing two languages – helps in problem solving; see, e.g., [2, 3]. Because of this general fact, researchers studying autism decided to check whether a similar improvement can be observed in autistic children. It helps but why? The results of this research [5] show that bilingualism indeed statistically significantly helps bilingual children switch to a new activity: on average, bilingual autistic children performed better on such switching tasks than monolingual ones. These results confirmed anecdotal evidence listed in [6].","PeriodicalId":107214,"journal":{"name":"International Mathematical Forum","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125803697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：