Helen Tager-Flusberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 734181 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Tager-Flusberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen |
| FAMILY NAME | Tager-Flusberg |
| SIGNATURE | TAGER-FLUSBERG H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Boston |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8768-5414 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
How do parents refer to their children while playing? A cross-linguistic comparison of parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with ASD
Instances of person-reference, in the form of personal pronouns, names, or terms of endearment, are frequently used in child-directed speech. Examining this aspect of parental input is especially relevant to children with autism, who experience difficulties with person-reference. In this study, we compared the person-reference during parent-child interactions of Bulgarian (N=37) and English-speaking (N=37) parents of children with autism, who wer…
Remote Natural Language Sampling of Parents and Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Role of Activity and Language Level
Natural language sampling (NLS) is a common methodology in research and clinical practice used to evaluate a child's spontaneous spoken language in a naturalistic context. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that results in heterogeneous language profiles. NLS has emerged as a useful method for better understanding language use and development in this population. Prior work has examined the effects that contex…
Expanding contexts for exploring the intersection of autism and bilingualism
Preview this article: Expanding contexts for exploring the intersection of autism and bilingualism, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.21047.gro-1.gif
Prevalence and Correlates of Psychiatric Symptoms in Minimally Verbal Children and Adolescents With ASD
Despite many studies documenting the prevalence of various co-occurring psychiatric symptoms in children and adults with ASD, less is known about how these symptoms relate to subtypes defined by particular phenotypic features within the ASD population. We examined the severity and prevalence of comorbid symptoms of psychopathology, emotion dysregulation, and maladaptive behaviors, as well as adaptive functioning, in a group of 65 minimally verbal…
Attentional bias to fearful faces in infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their first-degree relatives show differences from neurotypical individuals in emotional face processing. Prospective studies of infant siblings of children with ASD, a group at high risk for autism (HRA), allow researchers to examine the early emergence of these differences. This study used eye tracking to examine disengagement of attention from emotional faces (fearful, happy, neutral) at 6, 9…
Greater Pupil Size in Response to Emotional Faces as an Early Marker of Social‐Communicative Difficulties in Infants at High Risk for Autism
When scanning faces, individuals with autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) have shown reduced visual attention (e.g., less time on eyes) and atypical autonomic responses (e.g., heightened arousal). To understand how these differences might explain subclinical variability in social functioning, 9‐month‐olds, with or without a family history of ASD , viewed emotionally expressive faces, and gaze and pupil diameter (a measure of autonomic activation) we…
Do you have a question for me? How children with Williams syndrome respond to ambiguous referential communication during a joint activity
Research on language in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) has been fueled by persistent theoretical controversies for two decades. These shifted from initial focus on dissociations between language and cognition functions, to examining the paradox of socio-communicative impairments despite high sociability and relatively proficient expressive language. We investigated possible sources of communicative difficulties in WS in a collaborative r…
An investigation of language impairment in autism: Implications for genetic subgroups
Autism involves primary impairments in both language and communication, yet in recent years the main focus of research has been on the communicative deficits that define the population. The study reported in this paper investigated language functioning in a group of 89 children diagnosed with autism using the ADI-R, and meeting DSM-IV criteria. The children, who were between 4- and 14- years-old were administered a battery of standardized languag…
Understanding other minds: Perspectives From Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
It has been nearly 10 years since the material for the original edition of this book was prepared. During that time, there has been dramatic growth in the fields of theory of mind, autism, and cognitive neuroscience. This new edition includes a whole section on the cognitive neuroscience of "mind-reading", bringing together varied research methods such as functional neuro-imaging, single cell recording, and neuropsychology. In addition, there is …
Clinicians' Perceptions of Children's Oral Personal Narratives
A diverse group of child clinicians (n — 39) rated paragraph-long transcriptions of two Euro-American, two African-American, and two Latino children's oral narratives. Clinicians were asked to rate the logic, cohesion, and comprehensibility of the stories using 6-point scales. They were also asked to give a rough estimate of the children's IQ, to comment on the existence of emotional/behavioral and/or learning/language problems, and to assign pos…
When 3-year-olds pass the appearance–reality test
When 3-year-olds pass the appearance-reality test
Sixty-eight 3-year-olds received a standard appearance-reality task along with either a trick task, in which the appearance question was placed in the context of a deceptive game, or a reduced information processing task, in which a dual object (e.g., a sponge-rock) was presented along with an object that matched the dual object's identity (a sponge) and one that matched the dual object's appearance (a rock). Children were more likely to pass eit…
Constraints on Language Acquisition: Studies of Atypical Children
Preschoolers can attribute second-order beliefs
The ability to attribute 2nd-order mental states was investigated in 87 children drawn from preschool, kindergarten, 1 st-grade, and 2nd-grade classes. Children received 4 stories, 2 standard and 2 new, designed to test their understanding of 2nd-order mental states. The standard stories were modified versions of J. Perner and H. Wimmer's (1985) 2nd-order task. The new stories were made significantly simpler by reducing the number of characters, …
Does imitation facilitate the acquisition of grammar? Evidence from a study of autistic, Down's syndrome and normal children
This paper re-opens the question of whether imitation plays a significant role in the acquisition of grammar. Data for this study came from four samples of naturalistic mother-child speech taken over the course of one year from four autistic, four Down's syndrome and four normal children, covering a range of MLU stages. In general, autistic children used more formulaic language, including imitations, than Down's syndrome children, who in turn use…
The acquisition of colour terms
The acquisition of colour terms in pre-school-aged children was investigated in two studies. The first study explored the role of conceptual factors in 2-, 3- and 4-year-old children's performance on two tasks. Comprehension and production of basic colour words were tested using stimuli that varied in focality. The results confirmed earlier research demonstrating the important and early influence of focality on children's colour concepts and deve…
Sentence coordination in Japanese and English
Structural and contextual constraints on coordination in child speech are discussed. An elicited production study with English- and Japanese-speaking children in which these constraints were manipulated is reported. Results show referential context to be an important determinant of conjunction structure. In addition, structural parameters also influenced the extent to which redundancy is expressed in utterances. A preliminary model of coordinatio…
Preschoolers can attribute second-order beliefs
The ability to attribute 2nd-order mental states was investigated in 87 children drawn from preschool, kindergarten, 1 st-grade, and 2nd-grade classes. Children received 4 stories, 2 standard and 2 new, designed to test their understanding of 2nd-order mental states. The standard stories were modified versions of J. Perner and H. Wimmer's (1985) 2nd-order task. The new stories were made significantly simpler by reducing the number of characters, …
When 3-year-olds pass the appearance-reality test
Sixty-eight 3-year-olds received a standard appearance-reality task along with either a trick task, in which the appearance question was placed in the context of a deceptive game, or a reduced information processing task, in which a dual object (e.g., a sponge-rock) was presented along with an object that matched the dual object's identity (a sponge) and one that matched the dual object's appearance (a rock). Children were more likely to pass eit…
Clinicians' Perceptions of Children's Oral Personal Narratives
A diverse group of child clinicians (n — 39) rated paragraph-long transcriptions of two Euro-American, two African-American, and two Latino children's oral narratives. Clinicians were asked to rate the logic, cohesion, and comprehensibility of the stories using 6-point scales. They were also asked to give a rough estimate of the children's IQ, to comment on the existence of emotional/behavioral and/or learning/language problems, and to assign pos…
When 3-year-olds pass the appearance–reality test
Sentence coordination in Japanese and English
Structural and contextual constraints on coordination in child speech are discussed. An elicited production study with English- and Japanese-speaking children in which these constraints were manipulated is reported. Results show referential context to be an important determinant of conjunction structure. In addition, structural parameters also influenced the extent to which redundancy is expressed in utterances. A preliminary model of coordinatio…
The acquisition of colour terms
The acquisition of colour terms in pre-school-aged children was investigated in two studies. The first study explored the role of conceptual factors in 2-, 3- and 4-year-old children's performance on two tasks. Comprehension and production of basic colour words were tested using stimuli that varied in focality. The results confirmed earlier research demonstrating the important and early influence of focality on children's colour concepts and deve…
Does imitation facilitate the acquisition of grammar? Evidence from a study of autistic, Down's syndrome and normal children
This paper re-opens the question of whether imitation plays a significant role in the acquisition of grammar. Data for this study came from four samples of naturalistic mother-child speech taken over the course of one year from four autistic, four Down's syndrome and four normal children, covering a range of MLU stages. In general, autistic children used more formulaic language, including imitations, than Down's syndrome children, who in turn use…
Preschoolers can attribute second-order beliefs
The ability to attribute 2nd-order mental states was investigated in 87 children drawn from preschool, kindergarten, 1 st-grade, and 2nd-grade classes. Children received 4 stories, 2 standard and 2 new, designed to test their understanding of 2nd-order mental states. The standard stories were modified versions of J. Perner and H. Wimmer's (1985) 2nd-order task. The new stories were made significantly simpler by reducing the number of characters, …
Constraints on Language Acquisition: Studies of Atypical Children
When 3-year-olds pass the appearance–reality test
When 3-year-olds pass the appearance-reality test
Sixty-eight 3-year-olds received a standard appearance-reality task along with either a trick task, in which the appearance question was placed in the context of a deceptive game, or a reduced information processing task, in which a dual object (e.g., a sponge-rock) was presented along with an object that matched the dual object's identity (a sponge) and one that matched the dual object's appearance (a rock). Children were more likely to pass eit…
Clinicians' Perceptions of Children's Oral Personal Narratives
A diverse group of child clinicians (n — 39) rated paragraph-long transcriptions of two Euro-American, two African-American, and two Latino children's oral narratives. Clinicians were asked to rate the logic, cohesion, and comprehensibility of the stories using 6-point scales. They were also asked to give a rough estimate of the children's IQ, to comment on the existence of emotional/behavioral and/or learning/language problems, and to assign pos…
Understanding Other Minds: Perspectives from Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
It has been nearly 10 years since the material for the original edition of this book was prepared. During that time, there has been dramatic growth in the fields of theory of mind, autism, and cognitive neuroscience. This new edition includes a whole section on the cognitive neuroscience of "mind-reading", bringing together varied research methods such as functional neuro-imaging, single cell recording, and neuropsychology. In addition, there is …
Understanding other minds: Perspectives From Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
An investigation of language impairment in autism: Implications for genetic subgroups
Autism involves primary impairments in both language and communication, yet in recent years the main focus of research has been on the communicative deficits that define the population. The study reported in this paper investigated language functioning in a group of 89 children diagnosed with autism using the ADI-R, and meeting DSM-IV criteria. The children, who were between 4- and 14- years-old were administered a battery of standardized languag…
Do you have a question for me? How children with Williams syndrome respond to ambiguous referential communication during a joint activity
Research on language in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) has been fueled by persistent theoretical controversies for two decades. These shifted from initial focus on dissociations between language and cognition functions, to examining the paradox of socio-communicative impairments despite high sociability and relatively proficient expressive language. We investigated possible sources of communicative difficulties in WS in a collaborative r…
Greater Pupil Size in Response to Emotional Faces as an Early Marker of Social‐Communicative Difficulties in Infants at High Risk for Autism
When scanning faces, individuals with autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) have shown reduced visual attention (e.g., less time on eyes) and atypical autonomic responses (e.g., heightened arousal). To understand how these differences might explain subclinical variability in social functioning, 9‐month‐olds, with or without a family history of ASD , viewed emotionally expressive faces, and gaze and pupil diameter (a measure of autonomic activation) we…
Prevalence and Correlates of Psychiatric Symptoms in Minimally Verbal Children and Adolescents With ASD
Despite many studies documenting the prevalence of various co-occurring psychiatric symptoms in children and adults with ASD, less is known about how these symptoms relate to subtypes defined by particular phenotypic features within the ASD population. We examined the severity and prevalence of comorbid symptoms of psychopathology, emotion dysregulation, and maladaptive behaviors, as well as adaptive functioning, in a group of 65 minimally verbal…
Attentional bias to fearful faces in infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their first-degree relatives show differences from neurotypical individuals in emotional face processing. Prospective studies of infant siblings of children with ASD, a group at high risk for autism (HRA), allow researchers to examine the early emergence of these differences. This study used eye tracking to examine disengagement of attention from emotional faces (fearful, happy, neutral) at 6, 9…
Remote Natural Language Sampling of Parents and Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Role of Activity and Language Level
Natural language sampling (NLS) is a common methodology in research and clinical practice used to evaluate a child's spontaneous spoken language in a naturalistic context. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that results in heterogeneous language profiles. NLS has emerged as a useful method for better understanding language use and development in this population. Prior work has examined the effects that contex…
Expanding contexts for exploring the intersection of autism and bilingualism
Preview this article: Expanding contexts for exploring the intersection of autism and bilingualism, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.21047.gro-1.gif
How do parents refer to their children while playing? A cross-linguistic comparison of parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with ASD
Instances of person-reference, in the form of personal pronouns, names, or terms of endearment, are frequently used in child-directed speech. Examining this aspect of parental input is especially relevant to children with autism, who experience difficulties with person-reference. In this study, we compared the person-reference during parent-child interactions of Bulgarian (N=37) and English-speaking (N=37) parents of children with autism, who wer…
Psychology (15 works) · Developmental psychology (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works) · Autism (8 works) · Language Development and Disorders (8 works) · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research (7 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Cognition (4 works) · Language development (4 works)