Semantic and morphosyntactic performance in Cantonese-speaking adults with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

Mixed findings have been reported in the areas of lexical semantics and morphosyntax in individuals with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (HFA) by previous studies. This study compared the amount of semantic errors and morphosyntactic errors produced in the spontaneous language samples in 20 adults with HFA and 20 matched neuro-typical controls (NC) who were native Cantonese speakers. The two groups of participants were matched by sex, age, and educational level. All participants were engaged in an interview. Results indicated the HFA group produced significantly more semantic errors, morphosyntactic errors, and verbal mazes than the NC group. The current findings suggested that the semantic impairments lay in their weak lexical depth, and the nature of the morphosyntactic deficit was related to their possible language formulation capacity and the errors were beyond developmental delay.