Comparing Certain Time Representation Features In High-functioning Autistic Children with Normal Children’s Narrative Discourse

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, affecting the individual’s cognitive and language skills. Since human social life is highly dependent on cognitive and linguistic abilities, these abilities are essential factors in human growth and development. The production and perception of narrative discourse at a language level require the utilization of cognitive and linguistic abilities. Considering the fact that the timeline and the way it is expressed is one of the main components of narrative formation, the topic of time can be challenging in the narrative discourse for children with autism. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate and assess the representation of some features of time, such as perfective and imperfective aspects and grounding, including foreground and background in the narrative discourse of children with high-functioning autism.

In the current research, the representation of grounding in narrative discourse aspects of Persian-speaking children with high-functioning autism disorder (HFAD) and normal children were studied, compliant with classifications by Hickman et al. To this end, 20 male children with high-functioning autism disorder (chronological age: 7-11) and 20 normal male children (chronological age: 7-11) participated in this study. Narratives were elicited based on “Horse” and “Cat” picture stories provided by Hickman. Pursuant to studying and describing the collected data, they were thereafter analyzed via the Mann-Whitney U Test.

The findings pointed out that there was a significant difference between HFAD and normal children in the representation of perfective aspect and grounding (P=0.05). Children with HFAD had a weaker representation compared to normal children. Similarly, the children with HFAD had a more anemic performance in representing perfective aspect and foreground as the core data in producing narrative, whereas children with HFAD produced more marginal data and background compared to normal children. Conclusion Consistent with the findings, it appears that poor performance by children with HFAD in comparison with normal children in the representation of certain features of time, such as aspect and grounding in narrative discourse can be related to their cognitive and linguistic weaknesses.