TY - JOUR
T1 - Sensitivity to probabilistic orthographic cues to lexical stress in adolescent speakers with autism spectrum disorder and typical peers
AU - Arciuli, Joanne
AU - Paul, Rhea
PY - 2012/3/1
Y1 - 2012/3/1
N2 - Lexical stress refers to the opposition of strong and weak syllables within polysyllabic words and is a core feature of the English prosodic system. There are probabilistic cues to lexical stress present in English orthography. For example, most disyllabic English words ending with the letters "-ure" have first-syllable stress (e.g., "pasture", but note words such as "endure"), whereas most ending with "-ose" have second-syllable stress (e.g., "propose", but note examples such as "glucose"). Adult native speakers of English are sensitive to these probabilities during silent reading. During testing, they tend to assign first-syllable stress when reading a nonword such as "lenture" but second-syllable stress when reading "fostpose" (Arciuli & Cupples, 2006). Difficulties with prosody, including problems processing lexical stress, are a notable feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study investigated the ability of adolescents with ASD (13-17 years of age) to show this sensitivity compared with a group of typically developing peers. Results indicated reduced sensitivity to probabilistic cues to lexical stress in the group with ASD. The implications of these findings are discussed.
AB - Lexical stress refers to the opposition of strong and weak syllables within polysyllabic words and is a core feature of the English prosodic system. There are probabilistic cues to lexical stress present in English orthography. For example, most disyllabic English words ending with the letters "-ure" have first-syllable stress (e.g., "pasture", but note words such as "endure"), whereas most ending with "-ose" have second-syllable stress (e.g., "propose", but note examples such as "glucose"). Adult native speakers of English are sensitive to these probabilities during silent reading. During testing, they tend to assign first-syllable stress when reading a nonword such as "lenture" but second-syllable stress when reading "fostpose" (Arciuli & Cupples, 2006). Difficulties with prosody, including problems processing lexical stress, are a notable feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study investigated the ability of adolescents with ASD (13-17 years of age) to show this sensitivity compared with a group of typically developing peers. Results indicated reduced sensitivity to probabilistic cues to lexical stress in the group with ASD. The implications of these findings are discussed.
KW - Autism
KW - Autism spectrum disorder
KW - Lexical stress
KW - Orthography
KW - Probabilistic cues
KW - Prosody
KW - Reading
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84864711711&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17470218.2012.655700
DO - 10.1080/17470218.2012.655700
M3 - Article
C2 - 22417232
AN - SCOPUS:84864711711
SN - 1747-0218
VL - 65
SP - 1288
EP - 1295
JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
IS - 7
ER -