What Silent Pauses Can 'Tell' Us About the Storytelling Skills of Autistic Children: Relations Between Pausing, Language Skills and Executive Functions.

Silent pauses may serve communicative purposes such as demarcating boundaries between discourse units in language production. Previous research has shown that autistic children differ in their pausing behavior from typically-developing (TD) peers, however, the factors behind this difference remain u...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders Vol. 55; no. 12; pp. 4171 - 4185
Autores principales: Peristeri, Eleni, Drakoulaki, Katerina, Boznou, Antonia, Nerantzini, Michaela, Gena, Angeliki, Lengeris, Angelos, Varlokosta, Spyridoula
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Springer Nature Dec2025
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=189168309&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: ccm
    uiTerm: 189168309
    longDbName: CINAHL Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    dissinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        01623257
        AUT
      jtl: Journal of Autism & Developmental Disorders
      issn: 01623257
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: Dec2025
      vid: 55
      iid: 12
      pid: 237
      pub: Springer Nature
      place: New York, New York
    artinfo:
      ui:
        189168309
        179311747
        189168309
        189168309
        10.1007/s10803-024-06523-y
        189168309
      ppf: 4171
      ppct: 14
      formats:
        fmt:
          – @attributes:
              type: T
          – @attributes:
              type: P
      tig:
        atl: What Silent Pauses Can 'Tell' Us About the Storytelling Skills of Autistic Children: Relations Between Pausing, Language Skills and Executive Functions.
      aug:
        au:
          Peristeri, Eleni
          Drakoulaki, Katerina
          Boznou, Antonia
          Nerantzini, Michaela
          Gena, Angeliki
          Lengeris, Angelos
          Varlokosta, Spyridoula
        affil: https://ror.org/02j61yw88 Department of Theoretical & Applied Linguistics, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece
      sug:
        subj:
          Speech Evaluation
          Narratives
          Autism Spectrum Disorder In Infancy and Childhood
          Child Behavior
          Executive Function Evaluation
          Grammar Evaluation
          Vocabulary Evaluation
          Human
          Peer Group
          Discourse Analysis
          Cognitive Flexibility
          Clinical Assessment Tools
          Storytelling
          Memory, Short Term
          Funding Source
          Greece
          Male
          Female
          Child
          Adolescence
          Case Control Studies
          Software
          Task Performance and Analysis
          Data Analysis Software
          Two-Tailed Test
          Paired T-Tests
          Chi Square Test
          Analysis of Covariance
          T-Tests
          Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient
          Interrater Reliability Evaluation
          Psychological Tests
          Language Tests
          Child: 6-12 years
          Adolescent: 13-18 years
          Male
          Female
      ab: Silent pauses may serve communicative purposes such as demarcating boundaries between discourse units in language production. Previous research has shown that autistic children differ in their pausing behavior from typically-developing (TD) peers, however, the factors behind this difference remain underexplored. The current study was aimed at comparing the use of silent pauses in the narrative production of autistic children and age-matched TD children, and also to identify possible relations between pausing behavior and the children's language and executive function abilities. According to the study's findings, the autistic children did not differ from their TD peers in the use of grammatical pauses, however, the former tended to produce significantly less syntactically complex narratives than the TD group, which increased the likelihood that the autistic group would pause appropriately at phrasal boundaries. Though we have found low rates of ungrammatical silent pauses and omitted pauses in obligatory discourse contexts across both groups, autistic children with lower cognitive flexibility tended to use more ungrammatical pauses than their peers with higher cognitive flexibility scores. Also, the autistic group tended to omit obligatory silent pauses more often as their narration became more complex. The results demonstrate that syntactic complexity in narrative production modulated autistic children's pausing behavior, and that structurally simple narrations boosted the autistic group's appropriate use of grammatical pauses. The overall findings also demonstrate the importance of studying silent pauses in the narrative discourse of autistic children, and also highlight the links between silent pauses and the children's syntactic and cognitive skills.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
    refInfo:
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N