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Dialogic Linkage and Resonance in Autism

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Abstract

We evaluated how children with autism make linguistic adjustments when talking with someone else. We devised two novel measures to assess (a) overall conversational linkage and (b) utterance-by-utterance resonance within dialogue between an adult and matched participants with and without autism (n = 12 per group). Participants with autism were less able to establish ‘cognitive linkage’ with an interlocutor. As predicted, only among children with autism was there a positive correlation between the ability to link in with speaker’s meanings and ratings of emotional connectedness with the conversational partner. Participants with autism were not less likely to show a basic form of dialogic resonance across successive utterances (the ‘frame grab’), but more often elaborated their responses in an atypical manner.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the pupils, parents and staff of the UK schools where the interviews were conducted, and our colleagues Tony Lee and Kira Griffitt. We are greatly indebted to the Baily Thomas Charitable Fund and the NHS R&D Levy. Portions of this work were completed when the first author was a Fellow and the second author a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University. The work reported here includes data from the PhD dissertation of the third author. The last author is grateful for support from the University of California, Santa Barbara Academic Senate.

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  1. Rosa García-Pérez

    Present address: Musicaycolor, C/Maldonado 41, 28006, Madrid, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Adult Department, Tavistock Clinic, 120 Belsize Lane, London, NW3 5BA, UK

    R. Peter Hobson, Jessica A. Hobson & Rosa García-Pérez

  2. Behavioural and Brain Sciences Unit, Institute of Child Health, University College London, 30 Guilford Street, London, WC1N 1EH, UK

    R. Peter Hobson & Jessica A. Hobson

  3. Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, South Hall 3431/3432, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106-3100, USA

    John Du Bois

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  1. R. Peter Hobson
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Correspondence to R. Peter Hobson.

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Hobson, R.P., Hobson, J.A., García-Pérez, R. et al. Dialogic Linkage and Resonance in Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 42, 2718–2728 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1528-6

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