LANGUAGE IN AUTISM: CLINICAL AND BASIC STUDIES

这个子项目是许多研究子项目中利用 资源由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。子项目和 调查员(PI)可能从NIH的另一个来源获得了主要资金， 并因此可以在其他清晰的条目中表示。列出的机构是 该中心不一定是调查人员的机构。 语言和交流障碍是定义自闭症的核心特征之一。这种障碍的普遍症状包括语言的语用方面的缺陷，这与心理理论的缺陷密切相关，以及涉及非语言交流渠道的社会交际缺陷，包括处理面孔及其交流信号的能力。还有一部分自闭症患者有额外的语言障碍，包括语音、词汇和语法知识方面的缺陷。我们计划在三个项目中解决这些语言和社会交流缺陷，所有项目都涉及同一组患有自闭症、特定语言障碍(SLI)和正常对照的儿童。项目I将调查面孔感知及其交流信号的异常，探索这些缺陷、视觉注意力和知觉的其他方面以及自闭症患者的社会损害之间的关系。项目二将调查自闭症患者在语言处理方面的缺陷，以进一步确定自闭症亚组和SLI之间的相似性。项目III将使用结构和功能成像方法(MRI)来调查项目I和项目II中的认知/语言缺陷与自闭症潜在的脑病理之间的关系。项目三由一个单独的内部审查委员会议定书#H-23658涵盖。这些项目将由一个统一的临床和行政核心提供服务，该核心将招募和评估参与这些项目的儿童，维护计划项目数据库，提供统计咨询，并协调计划项目的所有管理活动。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Language and communicative impairments are among the core features that define autism. Universal symptoms of this impairment include deficits in pragmatic aspects of language, which are closely tied to theory of mind deficits, and social-communicative deficits that involve non-verbal channels of communication, including the ability to process faces and their communicative signals. There is also a subgroup of individuals with autism who have additional linguistic impairments, which include deficits in phonology, lexical and grammatical knowledge. We plan to pursue these language and social-communicative deficits in three projects, all involving the same groups of children with autism, specific language impairment (SLI) and normal controls. Project I will investigate abnormalities in the perception of faces and their communicative signals, exploring the relationship between these deficits, other aspects of visual attention and perception, and social impairment in autism. Project II will investigate deficits in language processing in autism, to further characterize similarities between the autism subgroup and SLI. Project III will use structural and functional imaging methods (MRI) to investigate the relationships between the cognitive/linguistic deficits in Projects I and II with underlying brain pathology in autism. Project III is covered by a separate IRB protocol #H- 23658. The projects will be served by a unified Clinical and Administrative Core that will recruit and assess the children participating in these projects, maintain the program project database, provide statistical consultation, and coordinate all the administrative activities for the program project.