Melissa L Allen

University of Bristol | UB · Graduate School of Education

Word learning requires successful pairing of form and meaning. A common hypothesis about the process of word learning is that initially, infants work on identifying the phonological segments corresponding to words (speech analysis), and subsequently map those segments onto meaning. A range of theories have been proposed to account for the underlyin...

This study investigated the interaction between internal characteristics and external prompts (drawing and dramatisation) in children’s eyewitness recall. Eighty-one 3- to 6- year old children witnessed a live event involving an altercation between two actors in their schools. They were asked to tell what happened (Verbal condition), draw what happ...

Purpose: Our systematic review aims to evaluate the existing literature regarding autistic children’s and adolescents’ pictorial symbol understanding. Background: Augmentative and alternative communication systems such as the picture exchange communication system (PECS) are frequently used for autistic children and adolescents to build up their co...

Background Autistic people have worse mental health (MH) than non-autistic people. This proof-of-concept study explored feasibility of longitudinal research with autistic university students, focusing on their MH and coping styles across an academic year. Methods Twenty-two students took part at all timepoints. They completed four rounds of online...

This study investigated whether the content of children’s drawings of an event changes over three successive interviews about that event. It also assessed whether children recall more details verbally than they draw. Twenty-seven 3- to 6-year old children witnessed a live event which ended with one actor stealing a cuddly toy. They were interviewed...

Pictures can represent more than one entity, and they can also represent literal or nonliteral concepts associated with a referent. In two studies, we examined whether 4-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and adults can view pictures as both literal and nonliteral when they are presented with different contextual cues, which would indicate representational fl...

We investigated symbolic understanding, word–picture–referent mapping, and engagement in children with autism spectrum condition (ASC) and ability-matched typically developing children. Participants viewed coloured pictorial symbols of a novel object (given a novel name) on an iPad in one of three conditions: static 2D images and either automatical...

Background and aims Children with autism spectrum condition often have specific difficulties understanding that pictorial symbols refer to real-world objects in the environment. We investigated the influence of labelling on the symbolic understanding and dual representation of children with autism spectrum condition. Methods Children with autism s...

Background and aims: Children with autism spectrum condition often have specific difficulties with narrative comprehension, a skill which has a strong association with both concurrent and longitudinal reading comprehension. A better understanding of narrative comprehension skills in autism spectrum condition has the potential to provide insight in...

Understanding figurative language develops during middle childhood. Drawing can facilitate recall and may aid other aspects of linguistic expression. We examined whether children provide more symbolic interpretations of figurative statements in drawings relative to verbal explanations, and whether drawing facilitates overall symbolic interpretation...

Art education includes activating two sources for developmental change. One resource that can be called upon to promote developmental change is external to the child, encouraged by teaching and by exposure to artworks. The other resource acts as a pacemaker internal to the child’s own cognitive development, facilitated by some conception of the min...

Background There is conflicting evidence regarding whether children with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) and intellectual disabilities (ID) follow social pragmatic cues such as a speaker’s eye gaze or pointing towards a novel object to assist mapping a new word onto a new object (e.g. fast mapping). Aims We test fast mapping from a speaker’s gaz...

Previous studies report that minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder show impaired picture comprehension when matched to typically developing controls on language comprehension. Here, we compare both picture comprehension and picture production abilities in linguistically delayed children with autism spectrum disorder and typically...

Pictures offer a unique and essential contribution to our lives, both in terms of aesthetic pleasure and links to symbolic thought. As such, psychologists have devoted significant time to investigating how children acquire an understanding of pictures. This chapter focuses on two particular facets of this development: the role of the artist and the...

The advent of electronic tablets, such as Apple's iPad, has opened up the field of learning via technology, and the use of electronic applications (“apps”) on these devices continues to dramatically rise. Children with communication and social impairment, specifically those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), often use educational and recreational...

We investigate the function bias-generalising words to objects with the same function-in typically developing (TD) children, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with other developmental disorders. Across four trials, a novel object was named and its function was described and demonstrated. Children then selected the other refe...

Research has debated whether shape or inferred referential intent directs children’s picture naming. Here we investigate whether typically developing (TD) children aged 2–5 years and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) comprehend pictures differently depending on whether they are intentional symbols. Participants were shown ambiguous line...

Here we examine imaginative drawing abilities in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and learning disabilities (LD) under several conditions: spontaneous production, with use of a template, and combining two real entities to form an 'unreal' entity. Sixteen children in each group, matched on mental and chronological age, were asked to draw...

Pictures are defined by their creator's intentions and resemblance to their real world referents. Here we examine whether young children follow a realist route (e.g., focusing on how closely pictures resemble their referents) or intentional route (e.g., focusing on what a picture is intended to represent by its artist) when identifying a picture's...

The shape bias-generalising labels to same shaped objects-has been linked to attentional learning or referential intent. We explore these origins in children with typical development (TD), autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other developmental disorders (DD). In two conditions, a novel object was presented and either named or described. Children s...

The use of the Apple iPad has skyrocketed in educational settings, along with largely unsubstantiated claims of its efficacy for learning and communication in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we examine whether children with ASD are better able to learn new word–referent relations using an iPad or a traditional picture book. We a...

Here we examine the hypothesis that symbolic understanding across domains is mediated by a fundamental ‘symbolizing’ ability in young children. We tested 30 children aged 2–4 years on symbolic tasks assessing iconic and non-iconic word-referent and picture-referent understanding and administered standardised tests of symbolic play and receptive lan...

Previous word learning studies suggest that children with autism spectrum disorder may have difficulty understanding pictorial symbols. Here we investigate the ability of children with autism spectrum disorder and language-matched typically developing children to contextualize symbolic information communicated by pictures in a search task that did...

Background: In the absence of spoken language, many low-functioning children with autism (CWA) are taught to communicate using pictorial symbols. Previous studies examining the learning and generalisation of word-picture relations suggest that CWA may have difficulties understanding the symbolic nature of pictures. Here we investigate the ability...

We investigated whether low-functioning children with autism generalise labels from colour photographs based on sameness of shape, colour, or both. Children with autism and language-matched controls were taught novel words paired with photographs of unfamiliar objects, and then sorted pictures and objects into two buckets according to whether or no...

This research investigated whether symbolic understanding of pictures in low-functioning children with autism is mediated by iconicity and language. In Experiment 1, participants were taught novel words paired with unfamiliar pictures that varied in iconicity (black-and-white line drawings, greyscale photographs, colour line drawings, colour photog...

Bullot & Reber (B&R) put forth a design stance to fuse psychological and art historical accounts of visual thinking into a single theory. We argue that this aspect of their proposal needs further fine-tuning. Issues of transgression and coherence are necessary to provide stability to the design stance. We advocate looking to Art Education for such...

Findings on inhibitory control in autism have been inconsistent. This is perhaps a reflection of the different tasks that have been used. Children with autism (CWA) and typically developing controls, matched for verbal and non-verbal mental age, completed three tasks of inhibition, each representing different inhibitory subcomponents: Go/No-Go (del...

We report an experiment that examined whether children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) spontaneously converge, or align, syntactic structure with a conversational partner. Children with ASD were more likely to produce a passive structure to describe a picture after hearing their interlocutor use a passive structure to describe an unrelated pi...

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can process both interpretations of an ambiguous figure (e.g. rabbit/duck) when told about the ambiguity, however they tend not to do so spontaneously. Here we show that although adolescents with ASD can explicitly experience such ‘reversals’, implicit measures suggest they are conceptually processing th...

Even babies have an implicit appreciation of the relationship between realistic pictures and the objects that they depict, but a mature understanding of pictures involves an explicit appreciation of how pictures work. Adults appreciate that pictures are public representations that can communicate information to other people, and that some pictures...

Pictures are referential in that they can represent objects in the real world. Here we explore the emergence of understanding of the referential potential of pictures during the second year of life. In Study 1, 15-, 18-, and 24-month-olds learned a word for a picture of a novel object (e.g., “blicket”) in the context of a picture book interaction....

Background: Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is characterised by significant impairment in social functioning and social ability, usually present with average or high cognitive ability. Current intervention techniques tend to focus more on young lower functioning individuals leaving high functioning adults with AS to learn and develop techniques on their...

Background: The ability to switch between two interpretations of an ambiguous figure (e.g. rabbit/duck) is a well-documented perceptual phenomenon. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can process these reversals' when explicitly told about the ambiguity, however they tend not to do so spontaneously (Mitchell and Ackroyd, 2003; Sobel, Capps...

Young typically developing children can reason about abstract depictions if they know the intention of the artist. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who are notably impaired in social, 'intention monitoring' domains, may have great difficulty in decoding vague representations. In Experiment 1, children with ASD are unable to use another...

This research investigates whether children with autism learn picture, word and object relations as associative pairs or whether they understand such relations as referential. In Experiment 1, children were taught a new word (e.g. `whisk') repeatedly paired with a novel picture. When given the picture and a previously unseen real whisk and asked to...

Adults appreciate that an abstract visual representation can be understood through inferring the artist's intention. Many investigators have argued that this capacity is a late-emerging developmental accomplishment, a claim supported by findings that preschool children ignore explicit statements about intent when naming pictures. Using a simplified...

Associative learning of pictures and words by low-functioning children with autism

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by impairments in three discrete domains: communication, social abilities, and imagination (resulting in repetitive interests and behavior). Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is now considered a national epidemic and has been expanded to include autism, Asperger's syndrome, pervasive developme...

Young children are readily able to use known labels to constrain hypotheses about the meanings of new words under conditions of referential ambiguity. At issue is the kind of information children use to constrain such hypotheses. According to one theory, children take into account the speaker's intention when solving a referential puzzle. In the pr...

Abstract In Experiment 1, 24-month-old toddlers were taught a new word (“whisk”) through the labeling of a picture of a whisk. After repeated pairings of the word and picture, participants were shown,the picture and a real whisk and asked to indicate the whisk. They took the word to refer to the real object rather than to the picture. Experiment 2...

Restricted semantic fields and resultant stimulus overselectivity are often thought to be typical of low-functioning autism, as is a strong visual processing preference. However, these conclusions may in part be an artifact of testing methodology. A 12-year-old, low-functioning and nonverbal autistic boy was tested on an auditory word-to-picture se...

The efficacy of ultrasound compared with ascending venography for the detection of deep venous thrombosis immediately after total knee arthroplasty was assessed after a 2-year interval. One hundred thirty-seven patients were eligible for the study; however, 31 patients received only one of the screening methods and a color Doppler examination was i...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, 2003. Includes bibliographical references. Photocopy. s