Predicting Language and Literacy Growth in Children With ASD Using Statistical Learning
The goal of this observational study is to test a reciprocal relationship between statistical learning and the development of language and literacy in first-graders with autism and their non-autistic peers. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. whether children's statistical learning abilities can predict their long-term improvement of language and literacy skills in school; 2. how children's brains automatically learn patterns from speech and prints; 3. whether children's learning in the lab reflects the language patterns they have learned over the years from their native language. First-grade students will participate in the study twice across three months. During Time 1, children will complete * a battery of language, reading, and cognitive assessments * a series of computer-based statistical learning games both inside and outside of functional MRI scanner. During Time 2, children will complete a battery of language and reading assessments to detect the growth in three months. Researchers will compare the autistic and the non-autistic groups to see if statistical learning plays a similar or different role in predicting children's language and literacy growth.
• current first grader (6;0 - 7;6)
• Geographically located within the Greater Boston Metropolitan Area
• Native English speakers
• Normal hearing
• Normal or corrected vision
• Children with a professional diagnosis of autism according to expert clinical judgment
• Capable of speaking sentences with three or more words
• Social Communication Parent Questionnaire score \> 15
• Autism diagnosis confirmed by ADOS
• Neurotypical: with no known cognitive, neurological, or psychiatric disorders
• Social Communication Parent Questionnaire score \< 11
• Receive a score within 1 SD of the population mean for age on all assessments.