Children with a variety of language-related problems, including dyslexia, experience difficulty processing the acoustic speech signal, leading to proposals of diagnostic entities known as auditory processing deficits. Although descriptions of these deficits vary across accounts, most hinge on the idea that problems arise at the level of detecting and/or discriminating sensory inputs. This article re-examines that idea, and proposes that the difficulty more likely arises in how those sensations get organized into service for auditory comprehension of language.
Evidence suggests a strong genetic basis to autism. Our research program focuses on identifying genetically meaningful phenotypes in autism, through family-genetic and cross-population methods, with a particular focus on language and social phenotypes that have been shown to aggregate in families of individuals with autism. In this article, we discuss recent findings from family study research implicating particular language and personality features as markers for genetic liability to autism and fragile X syndrome and FMR1-related variation in relatives. We conclude with consideration of the clinical implications of such findings.
There is a growing amount of evidence suggesting that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) differ in the way in which they cognitively process information. A critical aspect of cognitive processing that is receiving more attention in studies of ASD is categorization. The studies presented here examined the effect of typicality on categorization of objects and gender in high-functioning children, adolescents, and adults with ASD and matched controls. The ASD and control groups showed improved categorization throughout the lifespan for typical and somewhat typical object category members and typical gender faces. However, individuals with ASD took more time to categorize atypical object category members and were less accurate in categorizing atypical gender faces from 8-12 years through adulthood. The implications of these results for teaching categories and category labels to individuals with ASD will be discussed.
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