Article published in:
Autism, Language, Communication and Cognition
Edited by Stephanie Durrleman
[Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 4:1] 2022
► pp. 5–51

The language-communication divide

Evidence from bilingual children with atypical development

| University of Fribourg | University of Geneva
| Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
| University of Cambridge

Has language developed to serve as a system of communication or one of thought? While language is clearly an excellent tool for communication, the possible contribution of higher order cognitive processes other than language to communication may provide insights on how we think about language evolution. Studies show that bilingualism improves communication skills, possibly due to boosting domain general processes, thus suggesting a divide between communication and formal language. However, to date little attention has been paid to bilingual atypical child populations presenting asymmetric developmental delays in language and communication skills. In this study, we explore the language-communication divide in bilingual and monolingual children diagnosed with High Functioning Autism (HFA), displaying primary communication difficulties, and those with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), displaying primary language difficulties. Children were tested on language, cognitive control, Theory of Mind (ToM), social comprehension and verbal communication. Results demonstrate that bilingual children with HFA exhibit enhanced cognitive control, ToM and social comprehension, which in turn improve their verbal communication as compared to their monolingual peers with HFA. On the other hand, no boost emerges in bilingual children with SLI, be it in cognitive control or ToM, though a weaker advantage (relative to the children with ASD) can be observed in their verbal communication skills, with significant mediation from social comprehension. The overall evidence suggests that language, though useful for communication, is not sufficient for communication, and may arguably not have evolved primarily for communicative purposes.

Keywords: language, communication, bilingualism, cognitive control, theory of mind, social comprehension, high functioning autism, specific language impairment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Language and communication – equivalent?
    • 1.2Verbal communication, bilingualism and atypical development
  • 2.The current study
    • 2.1Analysis plan
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Language ability measures
    • 3.3Cognitive control measure
      • Global-local attention shifting task
      • Stimuli
      • Procedure
      • Scoring
    • 3.4Communication skills measure: Story structure complexity in narrative production
    • 3.5Social cognition measure: Unexpected transfer/Sally-Anne task
    • 3.6Social cognition measure: Comprehension test
    • 3.7Mediation analyses: The mediating role of social cognition in the experimental groups’ story structure performance
    • 3.8Mediation analyses: The mediating role of current language use in the bilingual groups’ story structure performance
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Conflict of interest
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 29 September 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/elt.00037.dur
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