An experimental study of word learning in minimally verbal children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Background and aimsWhen children hear a novel word, they tend to associate it with a novel rather than a familiar object. The ability to map a novel word to its corresponding referent is thought to depend, at least in part, on language-learning strategies, such as mutual exclusivity and lexical contrast. Although the importance of word learning strategies has been broadly investigated in typically developing children as well as younger children with autism spectrum disorder, who are usually language delayed, there is a paucity of research on such strategies and their role in language learning in school-age children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder who have failed to develop fluent speech. In this study, we examined the ability of minimally verbal children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder to learn and retain novel words in an experimental task, as well as the cognitive, language, and social correlates of these abilities. We were primarily interested in the characteristics that dif...