ArticleJournal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines2021
Natural language markers of social phenotype in girls with autism.
Article in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is There a Bias Towards Males in the Diagnosis of Autism? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2025Pooled it
- Are There Sex or Gender Differences in Autistic Characteristics? An Umbrella Systematic Review.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Sex-specific metrics for success: Gaps in social word use are bigger for autistic girls than boys.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- From Developmental Timing to Clinical Visibility: An Integrative Narrative Review of Sex-Related Neurocognitive Development.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Effects of gestational perfluorohexanesulfonic acid exposure at human realistic dose on social communication deficit in mouse offspring.EBioMedicine · 2026Article
- A multi-method phenotypic study of sex differences in pragmatic language in autism.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- "You should smile more": Population-level sex differences in smiling also exist in autistic people.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Pre-trained artificial intelligence language model represents pragmatic language variability central to autism and genetically related phenotypes.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Speech and language patterns in autism: Towards natural language processing as a research and clinical tool.Psychiatry research · 2024Review
- An Examination of Perceived Stress and Emotion Regulation Challenges as Mediators of Associations Between Camouflaging and Internalizing Symptomatology.Autism in adulthood · 2024Article
- Developmental Language Differences in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Possible Sex Difference.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2024Article
- "Um" and "Uh" Usage Patterns in Children with Autism: Associations with Measures of Structural and Pragmatic Language Ability.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2023Article
- Sex differences in the temporal dynamics of autistic children's natural conversations.Molecular autism · 2023Article
- Sex differences in social and emotional insight in youth with and without autism.Molecular autism · 2023Article
- Sex differences in friendships and loneliness in autistic and non-autistic children across development.Molecular autism · 2023Article
- Conversation During a Virtual Reality Task Reveals New Structural Language Profiles of Children with ASD, ADHD, and Comorbid Symptoms of Both.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2022Article
- Conversational adaptation in children and teens with autism: Differences in talkativeness across contexts.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2022Article
- Predictive language processing in young autistic children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2022Article
- Friend matters: sex differences in social language during autism diagnostic interviews.Molecular autism · 2022Article
- Diagnostic Tools for Autism Spectrum Disorders by Gender: Analysis of Current Status and Future Lines.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundGirls with autism spectrum condition (ASC) are chronically underdiagnosed compared to boys, which may be due to poorly understood sex differences in a variety of domains, including social interest and motivation. In this study, we use natural language processing to identify objective markers of social phenotype that are easily obtained from a brief conversation with a nonexpert.
methods87 school-aged children and adolescents with ASC (17 girls, 33 boys) or typical development (TD; 15 girls, 22 boys) were matched on age (mean = 11.35 years), IQ estimates (mean = 107), and - for ASC participants - level of social impairment. Participants engaged in an informal 5-min 'get to know you' conversation with a nonexpert conversation partner. To measure attention to social groups, we analyzed first-person plural pronoun variants (e.g., 'we' and 'us') and third-person plural pronoun variants (e.g., 'they' and 'them').
resultsConsistent with prior research suggesting greater social motivation in autistic girls, autistic girls talked more about social groups than did ASC boys. Compared to TD girls, autistic girls demonstrated atypically heightened discussion of groups they were not a part of ('they', 'them'), indicating potential awareness of social exclusion. Pronoun use predicted individual differences in the social phenotypes of autistic girls.
conclusionsRelatively heightened but atypical social group focus is evident in autistic girls during spontaneous conversation, which contrasts with patterns observed in autistic boys and TD girls. Quantifying subtle linguistic differences in verbally fluent autistic girls is an important step toward improved identification and support for this understudied sector of the autism spectrum.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.