The Representation of Some Space Components in Children with High-Functioning Autism and Normal Persian-speaking Children's Narrative Discourse: Predicates and spatial ground

Abstract

Autism is one of the most common neuro-developmental disorders that can influence an individual’s cognitive and linguistic abilities. Since it is necessary to make use of both cognitive and language abilities in narrative discourse, autistic individuals face a challenge in narrative production and comprehension. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the space domain, as one of the inseparable components of each narrative, and in a broader context, narrative discourse in children with high-functioning autism and normal Persian-speaking children. To this end, the representation of some components of space such as predicates (including static, active, active-accomplishment, and semelfactive) and spatial grounds (including nouns and pronouns) in the narrative discourse of children with high-functioning autism and normal children was studied based on Hickman (2004) and Roberts, Barjastefc Delforooz and Jahani's classification (2009).

Keywords

• narrative
• space
• predicate
• grounding
• children with high functioning autism disorder
• persian language