Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38967701›Full record

ArticleJournal of autism and developmental disorders2025

Spontaneous Generation of Unconventional Language and Its Link with Grammatical Performance in Chinese Adults With and Without ASD.

Zixuan Wu, Cherry Lam, Carol K S To

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. An Autistic "Linguatype"? Neologisms, New Words, and New Insights.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Zixuan WuAcademic Unit of Human Communication, Learning, and Development, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9370-6313
Cherry LamAcademic Unit of Human Communication, Learning, and Development, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Carol K S ToAcademic Unit of Human Communication, Learning, and Development, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. tokitsum@hku.hk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1272-6901

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This study investigated the generation of unconventional language in the spontaneous speech of Chinese adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and how it was related to their grammatical performance, when compared to neurotypical (NT) controls. Twenty Cantonese-speaking adults with ASD and 20 NT controls completed three interview tasks in the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2), and their spontaneous speech was recorded and transcribed. Utterances containing unconventional language (neologisms, idiosyncratic phrases, and pedantic language), morphosyntactic errors, mean length of utterance (MLU), and mazes were computed. The ASD group produced more neologisms, idiosyncratic phrases, and pedantic language than the NT group and their grammatical difficulties were shown in shorter MLU but not morphosyntactic errors. Mazes were more frequent in the ASD than the NT group. While the use of unconventional language increased with MLU in the NT group, it correlated positively with mazes in the ASD group. Generation of unconventional language, particularly pedantic language, in Cantonese-speaking NT adults is linked to more advanced grammar, while it appears to be a common speech characteristic among autistic speakers regardless of individual grammatical performance.

Indexed as

Autism Spectrum DisorderLanguageSpeechAdultChinaEast Asian PeopleFemaleHumansLanguage TestsMaleMiddle AgedYoung AdultAutismGrammarLanguage productionMorphosyntaxUnconventional language

Identifiers

PMID38967701
PMCPMC12476409

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.