Linguistic markers of autism in girls: evidence of a "blended phenotype" during storytelling.

Background Narrative abilities are linked to social impairment in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), such that reductions in words about cognitive processes (e.g., think, know) are thought to reflect underlying deficits in social cognition, including Theory of Mind. However, research suggests that typically developing (TD) boys and girls tell narratives in sex-specific ways, including differential reliance on cognitive process words. Given that most studies of narration in ASD have been conducted in predominantly male samples, it is possible that prior results showing reduced cognitive processing language in ASD may not generalize to autistic girls. To answer this question, we measured the relative frequency of two kinds of words in stories told by autistic girls and boys: nouns (words that indicate object-oriented storytelling) and cognitive process words (words like think and know that indicate mentalizing or attention to other peoples’ internal states).