Theory of Mind, linguistic recursion and autism spectrum disorder

• Authors: Polyanskaya Irina , Blackburn Patrick , Braüner Torben

Title variants

PL

Teoria umysłu, rekurencja językowa i spektrum autyzmu

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In this paper we give the motivation for and discuss the design of an experiment investigating whether the acquisition of linguistic recursion helps children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) develop second-order false belief skills. We first present the relevant psychological concepts (in particular, what Theory of Mind is, and what it has to do with false beliefs) and then go on to discuss the role of language in our investigation. We explain why compositional semantics seems of particular relevance to second-order false beliefs, and why training children with ASD in the comprehension and production of (recursive) possessive noun-phrases and sentential complements might be beneficial. After our discussion of these fundamental ideas motivating the study, we outline our experimental program in more detail.

PL

W niniejszym artykule przedstawimy motywacje dla przeprowadzenia i omówimy projekt eksperymentu mającego na celu zbadanie, czy nabycie rekurencji językowej pomaga dzieciom ze spektrum autyzmu (ASD) rozwinąć zdolności rozumienia fałszywych przekonań drugiego rzędu. Na początek przedstawimy istotne pojęcia z dziedziny psychologii (zwłaszcza objaśnimy, czym jest teoria umysłu i co ma ona wspólnego z fałszywymi przekonaniami), a następnie przejdziemy do omówienia roli języka w naszych badaniach. Wyjaśnimy, dlaczego semantyka kompozycjna wydaje się szczególnie ważna w odniesieniu do fał-szywych przekonań drugiego rzędu, i dlaczego ćwiczenie dzieci z ASD w rozumieniu i tworzeniu (rekurencyjnych) dzierżawczych fraz rzeczownikowych oraz dopełnień zdaniowych może być korzystne. Po przedyskutowaniu tych fundamentalnych pojęć odnoszących się do prowadzonych badań, przedstawimy nasz eksperymentalny program w szczegółach.

Keywords

EN

Theory of Mind; false beliefs; linguistic recursion; autism spectrum disorder

PL

fałszywe przekonania; rekurencja językowa; spektrum autyzmu; teoria umysłu

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Gdański
• Journal: Beyond Philology: An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching
• Year: 2017
• Issue: 14/1
• Pages: 69-95

Dates

published

2017

Contributors

author

Polyanskaya Irina

• Roskilde University

author

Blackburn Patrick

• Roskilde University

author

Braüner Torben

• Roskilde University

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Identifiers

ISSN

1732-1220

ISSN

2451-1498