Manabu Oi

• PhD
• Professor Emeritus at Kanazawa University

Twenty-seven pragmatic skills and social engagement sub-items and 7 language structure sub-items from the Communication Checklist – Adult were rated by 124 typically developing (TD) adults and 29 adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on a 5-point scale. The results indicated that the higher the score of the TD adults on the Autism Spectrum Quo...

This study examines the efficacy of the Japanese version of the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS), which focuses on improving social functioning through making friends and maintaining good relationships for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without intellectual disabilities. Originally developed in...

The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that individuals with higher Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores would be more permissive of pragmatic impairments than those with lower AQ scores. We investigated the presence of a correlation between the AQ scores of mothers with children in grades 1 to 6 and their evaluation of assumed pra...

The Japanese version of the Children's Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) was rated by caregivers in a large national population sample of 22,871 children aged 3-15 years. The General Communication Composite (GCC) of the CCC-2 exhibited a distribution with a single-factor structure. The GCC distribution between autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and la...

Partial correlation coefficients and p values between subscales. (XLSX)

Correlation between maternal AQ and MEPC scores (r = –0.26, p < 0.01). (TIF)

Question correspondence table of raw data. (PDF)

The inferior frontal and superior temporal areas in the left hemisphere are crucial for human language processing. In the present study, we investigated the magnetic mismatch field (MMF) evoked by voice stimuli in 3- to 5-year-old typically developing (TD) children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using child-customized magnetoencep...

The present study aimed to clarify the conversation characteristics of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typical development (TD). Unguided dyadic conversations between ASD (n=18) and TD (n=18) individuals in an experimental setting were analyzed using verbal response modes (VRM). No differences were observed with regard to total...

Background: Bilingual families with children with autism often struggle with the dilemma of language choice for their children as they are usually advised by professionals to use only one language to avoid the risk of language delay and confusion. However, there is no scientific base to such advice. Aims: To investigate how bilingualism would affec...

Some overlap has been suggested among the subtypes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. The Japanese version of the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) is a useful measure for identifying profiles in relation to communication impairments in children with ASD. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the CCC-2 could identi...

Supplementary material. Figure S1.

The auditory-evoked P1m, recorded by magnetoencephalography, reflects a central auditory processing ability in human children. One recent study revealed that asynchrony of P1m between the right and left hemispheres reflected a central auditory processing disorder (i.e., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD) in children. However, to date,...

The P1m component of the auditory evoked magnetic field is the earliest cortical response associated with language acquisition. However, the growth curve of the P1m component is unknown in both typically developing (TD) and atypically developing children. The aim of this study is to clarify the developmental pattern of this component when evoked by...

As in other countries with large immigrant populations, in Japan there is increasing interest in students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who experience learning and behavioral difficulties in the classroom. The causes of the problems have not been identified owing to a lack of appropriate and comparable assessments. In this...

This study investigated whether the longitudinal changes in symptom severity in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with changes in the parents׳ autistic traits. The results demonstrated two significant correlations between the changes in children׳s Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) scores and the Social Responsiveness Scale...

First-order theory of mind (ToM) is necessary for comprehension of metaphors, and second-order ToM is necessary for comprehension of irony. This study investigated the role of ToM and language ability in comprehending figurative language in 50 Taiwanese children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASDs) compared with 50 typically dev...

The relationship between language development in early childhood and the maturation of brain functions related to the human voice remains unclear. Because the development of the auditory system likely correlates with language development in young children, we investigated the relationship between the auditory evoked field (AEF) and language develop...

AimsThe aim of this study was to identify phenotypes in mothers and fathers that are specifically associated with disturbances in reciprocal social interactions and communication in their young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in a Japanese sample.Methods Autistic traits in parents were evaluated using the Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ),...

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is used to measure the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF), which reflects language-related performance. In young children, however, the simultaneous quantification of the bilateral auditory-evoked response during binaural hearing is difficult using conventional adult-sized MEG systems. Recently, a child-customised MEG...

Abstract The present study investigated the hypothesis that children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) have a greater difficulty in responding to Wh- than Yes/No questions across languages. Conversations between Taiwanese children and their mothers were investigated and the children's response adequacy to maternal questions in...

This study aimed to clarify factors related to difficulties in responding to yes/no questions (Y/N-Qs) among 52 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 41 boys and 11 girls aged between 3:5–16:0 years. Participants completed the Tanaka–Binet Intelligence Scale V, the Picture Vocabulary Test: Revised (PVT-R), and the Pervasive Developmental Di...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often described as a disorder of aberrant neural connectivity and/or aberrant hemispheric lateralization. Although it is important to study the pathophysiology of the developing ASD cortex, the physiological connectivity of the brain in young children with ASD under conscious conditions has not yet been described....

Socio-communicative impairments are salient features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from a young age. The anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC), or Brodmann area 10, is a key processing area for social function, and atypical development of this area is thought to play a role in the social deficits in ASD. It is important to understand these brain fu...

A subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) performs more proficiently on certain visual tasks than may be predicted by their general cognitive performances. However, in younger children with ASD (aged 5 to 7), preserved ability in these tasks and the neurophysiological correlates of their ability are not well documented. In the pre...

Unlike their English-speaking counterparts, Japanese children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASDs) perform as well as typically developing (TD) children in comprehending metaphor, despite lacking 1st order theory of mind (ToM) reasoning. Additionally, although Japanese sarcasm and "indirect reproach" appear theoretically to need...

Of 32 studies investigating prosocial behavior, 17 (53.1%) showed that OT exerted a significant main effect on the outcome compared to placebo. Five of these 17 studies suggested that the effect of OT was significantly modulated by situational differences or individual factors. On the other hand, 12 of 15 studies without a significant main effect o...

Background: Many educators and clinicians believe that bilingualism has negative influences on language development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, there have been few studies conducted to examine whether or not, or how bilingualism affects the language development of children with ASD. There is not sufficient evidence to...

Accurate perception of fundamental frequency (F0) contour changes in the human voice is important for understanding a speaker's intonation, and consequently also his/her attitude. In this study, we investigated the neural processes involved in the perception of F0 contour changes in the Japanese one-syllable interjection "ne" in 21 native-Japanese...

Language development progresses at a dramatic rate in preschool children. As rapid temporal processing of speech signals is important in daily colloquial environments, we performed magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate the linkage between speech-evoked responses during rapid-rate stimulus presentation (interstimulus interval < 1 s) and langua...

Recent neuroimaging studies support the view that a left-lateralized brain network is crucial for language development in children. However, no previous studies have demonstrated a clear link between lateralized brain functional network and language performance in preschool children. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a noninvasive brain imaging techn...

Background: Japanese children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) have relatively more difficulty responding to maternal Wh-questions (Wh-Qs) than yes/no questions (Y/N-Qs) when compared to typically developing (TD) children (Oi, 2010). A similar difficulty was found in non-echolalic English-speaking children with autism who ar...

The present study aimed to clarify whether comprehension of ambiguous sentences in Japanese children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) varies depending on the degree to which the use of these sentences is conventional. We examined the relationship between comprehension by children with HFASD and college freshmen's assessment of...

The present study compared 12 Japanese children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD), ranging in age from 7.3-14.8 years, with 12 typically developing (TD) children matched for age, gender, and vocabulary. The means of full-scale IQ and verbal-IQ of the children with HFASD were 95.92 (SD = 15.30) and 98.00 (SD = 18.44), respective...

Possibility and characteristics of interpersonal compensation for pragmatic impairments seen in children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism was investigated by conducting videotape analysis on conversational breakdowns reported by adults. Results revealed that various types of pragmatic impairment triggered communicative breakdowns....

Pre-linguistic children with severe to profound mental retardation were compared to matched infants without disabilities in regard to attaining adult comprehension of the child's communicative intentions by repairing communication and accepting correct interpretations. The results showed no group difference in the rate of repair, but the types of r...

This paper examined the processes that resulted in an adult failing to comprehend the intentions of a boy with high-functioning autism. In a dyadic conversation between an adult and a young boy, the adult used questions to elicit clarification of intentions. The boy's responses were examined frame-by-frame using videotape microanalysis. Two causes...

Researches on pragmatic impairments in individuals with Asperger syndrome were reviewed in regard to its characteristics and interventions. The very wide diversity of their pragmatic impairments was studied in terms of speech acts, expressing mental states, comprehension of indirect speech, question and answer, conversational turn-taking, narrative...

The present study analyzed the relation between maternal conversational style, children's behavioral problems and children's expressive language development. The participants were children with Down syndrome and their mothers, including 16 Taiwanese (average age 57.75 months) children and 16 Japanese children (average age 59.44 months). Path analys...

In an extension of maternal question-asking to Japanese children during free play and at meal time each of 20 mother-child dyads was videotaped at home. The mothers of children with Down syndrome asked more questions during free play at meal time, and for the sum of these two. Also, they produced more requests for information during free play and f...

To study maternal question-asking of Taiwanese children during free play and at meal time each mother-child dyad was videotaped at home. The mothers of children with Down syndrome asked more questions across different types of question during free play, at meal time, and for the sum of these two. Although no group difference was found for producing...