关键词: 高功能自闭症儿童, 空间象似效应, 语义加工

Abstract: Spatial experience plays an important role in semantic processing. There is a large body of evidence proposing a close link between language and space in both adults’ and children's brains. Specifically, when processing words referring to objects that typically occur in the upper or lower sphere of our world (e.g., upper sphere: ‘‘moon” ; lower sphere: ‘‘puddle” ), the spatial experiences will be activated, and attention will be shifted toward the objects’ typical locations. That is how the spatial iconicity plays its role in lexical processing. The involvement of spatial iconicity in lexical processing supports the model of embodied language processing. Language impairments are salient features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Moreover, the atypical semantic processing has been well-depicted in individuals with autism. From the perspective of embodied language processing, previous studies have reported that adults with autism showed reduced activation in motor experience in language comprehension. However, the performance of children with ASD has not been examined. The current study was designed to address the question that whether children with high-functioning autism (HFA) will activate spatial experience during lexical processing.
A 2 (participant group: HFA vs. typically developing children) × 2 (stimulation form: word vs. picture)×2 (the objects’ typical locations: upper vs. lower) ×2 (stimulation location: upper vs. lower) mixed design was conducted. Sixty-four children with HFA and 64 typically developing (TD) children who were included in the final analysis were matched by chronological age, verbal IQ, nonverbal IQ, and full-scale IQ. All children are between 5 and 7 years of age. Objects with typical location were selected for the study. Half of the children were asked to put cards with object nouns in two boxes placed vertically and the other half of the children needed to put cards with object pictures into the two boxes. After completing the experimental task described above, the subjects were asked to directly state the spatial locations of the objects to make sure that the children already knew the locations of the objects.
Both groups showed ceiling effect when they stated the spatial locations of the objects, indicating that both children with HFA and TD children have known the locations of the objects. When placing the cards with object nouns, TD children showed a tendency to put nous referring to objects that typically occur in the upper sphere of our world in the upper box and put those referring to objects that typically occur in the lower sphere into the lower box. However, children with HFA randomly placed the noun cards. When placing the cards with object pictures, although both groups showed the spatial compatibility effect, children with HFA showed reduced spatial compatibility effect than TD children.
The results indicated that Mandarin-speaking children with HFA aged 5~7 years have difficulty activating spatial experience in lexical-semantic processing. Although pictures can activate the orientation features of objects, the activation of spatial experience in children with HFA is still weaker than that in TD children.

Key words: children with high functioning autism, spatial iconicity, semantic processing