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In:Footprints of Phrase Structure: Studies in syntax in honour of Tim Stowell
Edited by María J. Arche, Jan-Wouter Zwart, Hamida Demirdache and Hagit Borer
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 288] 2025
► pp. 36–54

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Autism and language modularity

 | UMR 1253, Imaging Brain & Neuropsychiatry iBraiN, Université de Tours
 | University of Milano-Bicocca
 | UMR 1253, Imaging Brain & Neuropsychiatry iBraiN, Université de Tours
Published online: 2 October 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.288.03tul
Abstract
Language in autism provides an interesting perspective from which to explore language modularity, a central tenet of generative grammar. Structural language skills even in speaking individuals on the autism spectrum vary considerably, from age-appropriate, complex structural language to severely impaired structural language abilities. There is likewise considerable variation in the expression of autistic symptoms and co-occurring conditions, including those involving abilities frequently assumed to be prerequisites to typical language acquisition, such as social interaction. Illustrating with data from a study of 51 autistic children aged 6 to 12 from across the autism spectrum, we show that language in autism is characterized by “big” and “little” modularity, with dissociations both between linguistic competence and other areas of cognition and between components of linguistic competence.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.The central role of modularity in generative grammar
  • 2.Autism and language in autism
  • 3.Autism and little modularity
  • 4.Autism and big modularity
  • 5.Summary and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
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