Effect of color on picture naming in children with and without autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

The effect of color on picture naming was found in adults. Children of different clinical populations may have different visual focal point of interest. Pictures may provide different levels of details of an object and could facilitate or hinder object recognition and lexical retrieval. It is unclear whether the presence of color in pictures will or will not influence the performance of a child with or without developmental disorders in picture naming. The effect of color on accuracy and reaction time of picture naming in typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was investigated in two experiments. Fifteen TD children (age mean = 22.3 months) and seventeen children with ASD (age mean = 69.6 months) were included in the experiments. Black-and-white line drawings and colored pictures of twenty four familiar words and eight unfamiliar words were shown in blocked presentation. Results indicated that TD children had lowered naming accuracy of colored pictures with more details but color increased naming accuracy of familiar words for children with ASD, suggesting that different picture representations would be needed to examine the actual lexical ability in different groups of children. The implications for clinical usage of pictures in picture naming tasks are discussed.