Use of Mutual Exclusivity and its Relationship to Language Ability in Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The children with autism were older than the neurotypical controls, so age and diagnosis were not fully separated. The task measured looking to a new object when a new word was said, not whether the child learned or retained the word. The study found associations, not cause, so it cannot show that weak receptive language causes poor word learning. The apparent preference for novel objects was not statistically evaluated. There was no comparison group of late-talking toddlers without autism, so the role of autism apart from language ability is not clear. Two children were excluded from the final analyses because they contributed too few usable trials.

Do not conclude that autism alone causes a word-learning deficit. The group difference was not significant after receptive language was included, and the study did not test whether therapy changes word learning.