Disfluencies as a Window into Pragmatic Skills in Russian-Hebrew Bilingual Autistic and Non-Autistic Children.
Marianna Beradze, Natalia Meir
PMID 39298062WHAT IT FOUND
Bilingual autistic children produced fewer filled pauses and silent pauses than non-autistic peers, but only in their home language (Russian).
In their societal language (Hebrew), disfluency rates were similar. This suggests language context alters how disfluencies appear.
Key findings
01Autistic children produced significantly fewer filled pauses and silent pauses than non-autistic peers in HL-Russian, but no significant differences were found in SL-Hebrew.
02Non-autistic children showed higher disfluency rates in their home language (HL-Russian) compared to their societal language (SL-Hebrew), whereas autistic children's disfluency patterns were more consistent across both languages.
03In the autistic group, higher filled pause production was associated with better Theory of Mind and working memory scores, suggesting a link between these disfluencies and cognitive or pragmatic skills.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a narrative task (storytelling from pictures), which may not reflect disfluencies produced during natural conversation. The groups differed in socioeconomic status, with mothers in the autistic group having fewer years of education on average. The sample size was relatively small (51 children), and the groups were not matched for gender distribution. The study did not compare bilingual autistic children to monolingual autistic children, so it is unclear how much of the pattern is due to autism versus bilingualism.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel and Bar-Ilan University. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that autistic children have a global deficit in filled pauses. The significant reduction was found only in the home language (Russian). In the societal language (Hebrew), there was no difference between autistic and non-autistic children. Generalizing the finding to all languages or contexts would be inaccurate.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →