Event perception in children with Autism

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  An exploration of how children with autism perceive events in comparison to typically developing children.

• IRAS ID

  170432

• Contact name

  Helen Mary Roche

• Contact email

  hroche87@googlemail.com

• Sponsor organisation

  Homerton University Hospital

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 1 months, 24 days

• Research summary

  This research aims to look at how children with autism develop an understanding of event perception, a skill needed to interpret and organise events. Additionally it will explore how children with autism develop event knowledge in comparison to typically developing children.

  Understanding how children’s event perception develops is important because verbs, the words which describe events, are particularly difficult for children to acquire (Gentner and Borodosky, 2001). Recent research has found event perception in typically developing children aged 2-5 years, develops over time (Links, 2014). Additionally, findings show older children perform better than younger children when distinguishing events which are very similar e.g. throwing a banana and giving an apple. There is however little knowledge of how children with autism develop event perception, or how verb acquisition in children with autism compares with typical development (Douglas, 2012).

  This study will provide information about how children with autism perceive events and more importantly if there are differences in comparison to typical language development. This information may give an insight into why children with autism find learning language difficult, helping to shape interventions to specifically support children with autism to develop event perception and verb acquisition.

  The study will invite approximately 30 children to participate. The children will:
  - have a diagnosis of autism
  - be aged between 4.0-12.0 years

  The children will be required to look a series of three short video clips. They will be asked to match one video of an action with another (e.g. rolling a ball and a child doing a forward roll) whilst also distinguishing it from another similar action (a child spinning). Different levels of semantically related distractor videos with will be used to determine the children’s ability to distinguish between events which are similar.

• REC name

  North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  15/NW/0438

• Date of REC Opinion

  21 May 2015

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion