Inner speech is used to mediate short-term memory, but not planning, among intellectually high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder

Development and Psychopathology

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 225-239

  Williams, David M ^a   Bowler, Dermot M ^b   Jarrold, Christopher ^c  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b CITY UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ARTICLE; ASPERGER SYNDROME; AUTISM; FEMALE; HUMAN; MALE; MIDDLE AGED; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; RECALL; SHORT TERM MEMORY; THINKING;

ADULT; ASPERGER SYNDROME; AUTISTIC DISORDER; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MEMORY, SHORT-TERM; MENTAL RECALL; MIDDLE AGED; NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; THINKING;

EID: 84863068535     PISSN: 09545794     EISSN: 14692198     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579411000794     Document Type: Article

References (81)

1. Al-Namlah, A. S., Fernyhough, C., & Meins, E. (2006). Sociocultural influences on the development of verbal mediation: Private speech and phonological recoding in Saudi Arabian and British samples. Developmental Psychology, 42, 117-131. (Pubitemid 43172333)
2. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: Text revision (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
3. Asarnow, J. R., & Meichenbaum, D. (1979). Verbal rehearsal and serial recall- Mediational training of kindergarten-children. Child Development, 50, 1173-1177.
4. Austin, E. J. (2005). Personality correlates of the broader autism phenotype as assessed by the autism spectrum quotient (AQ). Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 451-460. (Pubitemid 39615192)
5. Baddeley, A., Chincotta, D., & Adlam, A. (2001).Working memory and the control of action: Evidence from task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 130, 641-657. (Pubitemid 33594788)
6. Baddeley, A. D., Thomson, N., & Buchanan, M. (1975). Word length and structure of short-term-memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 575-589.
7. Baldo, J. V., Dronkers, N. F.,Wilkins, D., Ludy, C., Raskin, P., & Kim, J. Y. (2005). Is problem solving dependent on language? Brain and Language, 92, 240-250. (Pubitemid 40249670)
8. Baron-Cohen, S., Wheelwright, S., Skinner, R., Martin, J., & Clubley, E. (2001). The autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from Asperger syndrome/high-functioning autism, males and females, scientists and mathematicians. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31, 5-7.
9. Bishop, D. V. M. (1989). Autism, Asperger's syndrome, and semantic-pragmatic disorder: Where are the boundaries? International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 24, 107-121. (Pubitemid 19224688)
10. Brown, R. M. (1977). Examination of visual and verbal coding processes in pre-school children. Child Development, 48, 38-45.
11. Caron, M. J., Mottron, L., Berthiaume, C., & Dawson, M. (2006). Cognitive mechanisms, specificity, and neural underpinnings of visuospatial peaks in autism. Brain, 129, 1789-1802. (Pubitemid 43999412)
12. Carruthers, P. (2002). The cognitive functions of language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 657-674. (Pubitemid 37121638)
13. Coltheart, M. (1981). The MRC psycholinguistic database. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology, 33, 497-505.
14. Conway, A. R. A., Kane, M. J., Bunting, M. F., Hambrick, D. Z., Wilhelm, O., & Engle, R.W. (2005).Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user's guide. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 12, 769-786. (Pubitemid 43341535)
15. Cowan, N., Cartwright, C., Winterowd, C., & Sherk, M. (1987). An adult model of pre-school children's speech memory. Memory & Cognition, 15, 511-517.
16. Delis, D. C., Kaplan, E., & Kramer, J. (2001). Delis Kaplan Executive Function System. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
17. Diaz, R. M., & Berk, L. E. (1995). AVygotskian critique of self-instructional training. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 369-392.
18. Dunbar, K., & Sussman, D. (1995). Toward a cognitive account of frontal lobe function: Simulating frontal lobe deficits in normal subjects. Structure and Functions of the Human Prefrontal Cortex, 769, 289-304. (Pubitemid 26075899)
19. Eley, T. (2008). Work in progress: Toward DSM-V. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 1-2.
20. Emerson, M. J,&Miyake, A. (2003). The role of inner speech in task switching: A dual-task investigation. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 148-168. (Pubitemid 36177481)
21. Fernyhough, C. (1996). The dialogic mind: A dialogic approach to the higher mental functions. New Ideas in Psychology, 14, 47-62. (Pubitemid 126169098)
22. Fernyhough, C. (2008). Getting Vygotskian about theory of mind: Mediation, dialogue, and the development of social understanding. Developmental Review, 28, 225-262.
23. Fernyhough, C., & Fradley, E. (2005). Private speech on an executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, 103-120.
24. Ford, S., & Silber, K. P. (1994). Working-memory in children-A developmental- approach to the phonological coding of pictorial material. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 165-175.
25. Gathercole, S. E. (1998). The development of memory. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 3-27. (Pubitemid 28059667)
26. Grandin, T. 1995. Thinking in pictures. New York: Vintage Press.
27. Goldberg, M. C., Mostofsky, S. H., Cutting, L. E., Mahone, E. M., Astor, B. C., Denckla, M. B., et al. (2005). Subtle executive impairments in children with autism and children with ADHD. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 379-293.
28. Gruber, O,&Goschke, T. (2004). Executive control emerging from dynamic interactions between brain systems mediating language, working memory and attentional processes. Acta Psychologica, 115, 105-121. (Pubitemid 38169810)
29. Halliday, M. S., Hitch, G. J., Lennon, B., & Pettipher, C. (1990). Verbal short-term memory in children: The role of the articulatory loop. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2, 23-38.
30. Happé, F., Booth, R., Charlton, R., & Hughes, C. (2006). Executive function deficits in autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: Examining profiles across domains and ages. Brain and Cognition, 61, 25-39.
31. Harris, M. E. (1990). Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: Computer version. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
32. Hasselhorn, M., & Grube, D. (2003). The phonological similarity effect on memory span in children: Does it depend on age, speech rate, and articulatory suppression? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 27, 145-152. (Pubitemid 36267510)
33. Hayes, D. S., & Schulze, S. A. (1977). Visual encoding in pre-schoolers' serial retention. Child Development, 48, 1066-1070.
34. Hill, E. L. (2004). Evaluating the theory of executive dysfunction in autism. Developmental Review, 24, 189-233. (Pubitemid 38521708)
35. Hitch, G. J., & Halliday, M. S. (1983). Working memory in children. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B: Biological Sciences, 302, 325-340.
36. Hitch, G. J., Halliday, M. S., Schaafstal, A. M., & Heffernan, T. M. (1991). Speech, inner speech, and the development of short-term-memory- Effects of picture-labeling on recall. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 220-234.
37. Hitch, G. J., Halliday, S., Schaafstal, A. M., & Schraagen, J. M. C. (1988). Visual working memory in young-children. Memory & Cognition, 16, 120-132.
38. Hitch, G. J., Woodin, M. E., & Baker, S. (1989). Visual and phonological components of working memory in children. Memory & Cognition, 17, 175-185. (Pubitemid 19075266)
39. Holland, L., & Low, J. (2010). Do children with autism use inner speech and visuo-spatial resources for the service of executive control? Evidence from suppression in dual tasks. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28, 369-391.
40. Hurlburt, R. T., Happe, F., & Frith, U. (1994). Sampling the form of inner experience in 3 adults with Asperger syndrome. Psychological Medicine, 24, 385-395. (Pubitemid 24158852)
41. Hurst, R. M., Mitchell, J. T., Kimbrel, N. A., Kwapil, T. K., & Nelson-Gray, R. O. (2007). Examination of the reliability and factor structure of the autism spectrum quotient (AQ) in a non-clinical sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 1938-1949.
42. Hyun, J. S,&Luck, S. L. (2007). Visual working memory as the substrate for mental rotation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 154-158.
43. Joseph, R. M., Steele, S. D., Meyer, E., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2005). Selfordered pointing n children with autism: Failure to use verbal mediation in the service of working memory? Neuropsychologia, 43, 1400-1411. (Pubitemid 40884677)
44. Just, M. A., Cherkassky, V. L., Keller, T. A., Kana, R. K., & Minshew, N. J. (2007). Functional and anatomical cortical underconnectivity in autism: Evidence from an fMRI study of an executive function task and corpus callosum morphometry. Cerebral Cortex, 17, 951-961. (Pubitemid 46434636)
45. Kray, J., Eber, J., & Karbach, J. (2008). Verbal self-instructions in task switching: A compensatory tool for action-control deficits in childhood and old age? Developmental Science, 11, 223-236.
46. Kenworthy, L., Yerys, B. E., Anthony, L. G., & Wallace, G. L. (2008). Understanding executive control in autism spectrum disorders in the lab and in the real world. Neuropsychology Review, 18, 320-338.
47. Kucera, H., & Francis,W. N. (1967). Computational analysis of present day American English. Providence, RI: Brown University Press.
48. Kunda,M,&Goel, A. K. (2011). Thinking in pictures as a cognitive account of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41, 1157-1177.
49. Lidstone, J. S. M., Fernyhough, C., & Meins, E. (2010). Verbal mediation of cognition in children with specific language impairment. Unpublished manuscript.
50. Lidstone, J. S. M., Fernyhough, C., Meins, E., & Whitehouse, A. J. O. (2009). Inner speech impairment in autism is associated with greater nonverbal than verbal skills. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 1222-1225.
51. Lidstone, J. S. M., Meins, E., & Fernyhough, C. (2010). The roles of private speech and inner speech in planning during middle childhood: Evidence from a dual task paradigm. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107, 438-451.
52. Lord, C., Risi, S., Lambrecht, L., Cook, E. H., Leventhal, B. L., DiLavore, P. C., et al. (2000). The autism diagnostic observation schedule-generic: A standard measure of social and communication deficits associated with the spectrum of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 30, 205-223.
53. Miyake, A., Emerson, M. J., Padilla, F., & Ahn, J. C. (2004). Inner speech as a retrieval aid for task goals: The effects of cue type and articulatory suppression in the random task cuing paradigm. Acta Psychologica, 115, 123-142. (Pubitemid 38178164)
54. Monsell, S., & Driver, J. (Eds.). (2000). Attention and performance: Vol. 18. Control of cognitive processes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
55. Mottron, L., Dawson, M., Soulières, L., Hubert, B., & Burack, J. (2006). Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: An update, and eight principles of autistic perception. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36, 27-43.
56. Murray, D. J. (1967). Role of speech responses in short-term memory. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 21, 263-276.
57. Owen, A. M., Downes, J. J., Sahakian, B. J., Polkey, C. E., & Robbins, T.W. (1990). Planning and spatial working memory following frontal-lobe lesions in man. Neuropsychologia, 28, 1021-1034. (Pubitemid 20347464)
58. Ozonoff, S., Cook, I., Coon, H., Dawson, G., Joseph, R. M., Klin, A., et al. (2004). Performance on Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery subtests sensitive to frontal lobe function in people with autistic disorder: Evidence from the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism network. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 34, 135-150.
59. Phillips, L. H., Wynn, V., Gilhooly, K. J., Della Sala, S., & Logie, R. H. (1999). The role of memory in the tower of london task. Memory, 7, 209-231.
60. Plaisted, K., O'Riordan, M., & Baron-Cohen, S. (1998). Enhanced discrimination of novel, highly similar stimuli by adults with autism during a perceptual learning task. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39, 765-775. (Pubitemid 28339608)
61. Russell, J., Jarrold, C., & Henry, L. (1996). Working memory in children with autism and with moderate learning difficulties. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 37, 673-686. (Pubitemid 26302346)
62. Russell, J., Jarrold, C., & Hood, B. (1999). Two intact executive capacities in children with autism: Implications for the core executive dysfunctions in the disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 29, 103-112. (Pubitemid 29275095)
63. Shallice, T. (1982). Specific impairments of planning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B Series, 298, 199-209.
64. Schunn, C. D., & Reder, L. M. (1998). Strategy adaptivity and individual differences. In D. L. Medin (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motiva-tion: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 38, pp. 115-154). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
65. Snodgrass, J. G., & Vanderwart, M. (1980). Standardized set of 260 pictures- Norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Learning and Memory, 6, 174-215.
66. Sokolov, A. N. (1972). Inner speech and thought. New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1968.)
67. Stewart, M. E., & Austin, E. J. (2009). The structure of the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ): Evidence from a student sample in Scotland. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 224-228.
68. Tam, H., Jarrold, C., Baddeley, A. D,& Sabatos-DeVito,M. (2010). The development of memory maintenance: Children's use of phonological rehearsal and attentional refreshment in working memory tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107, 306-324.
69. Thorndike, E. L., & Lorge, I. (1944). Tire teacher's word book of 30,000 words. New York: Columbia University, Teachers' College.
70. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. The collected works of Lev Vygotsky (Vol. 1). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934)
71. Wallace, G. L., Silvers, J. A., Martin, A., & Kenworthy, L. E. (2009). Brief report: Further evidence for inner speech deficits in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 39, 1735-1739.
72. Ward, G,&Allport, A. (1997). Planning and problem-solving using the fivedisc tower of London task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A: Human Experimental Psychology, 50, 49-78.
73. Wechsler, D. (2000) Wechsler Adult Scale of Intelligence (3rd ed., United Kingdom). San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
74. Whitehouse, A. J. O., Maybery, M. T., & Durkin, K. (2006). Inner speech impairments in autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 857-865. (Pubitemid 44084042)
75. Williams, D., Happe, F., & Jarrold, C. (2008). Intact inner speech use in autism spectrum disorder: Evidence from a short-term memory task. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 51-58.
76. Williams, D. M., & Jarrold, C. (2010). Brief report: Predicting inner speech use amongst children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): The roles of verbal ability and cognitive profile. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40, 907-913.
77. Winsler, A., Abar, B., Feder, M. A., Schunn, C. D., & Rubio, D. A. (2007). Private speech and executive functioning among high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1617-1635. (Pubitemid 47476591)
78. Winsler, A., de Leon, J. R., Wallace, B. A., Carlton, M. P., & Willson- Quayle, A. (2003). Private speech in preschool children: Developmental stability and change, across-task consistency, and relations with classroom behaviour. Journal of Child Language, 30, 583-608. (Pubitemid 37110157)
79. Winsler, A., Fernyhough, C., & Montero, I. (2009). Private speech, executive functioning, and the development of verbal self-regulation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
80. Woodbury-Smith, M. R., Robinson, J., Wheelwright, S., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2005). Screening adults for asperger syndrome using the AQ: A preliminary study of its diagnostic validity in clinical practice. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 35, 331-335. (Pubitemid 41125971)
81. World, Health Organization. (1992). ICD-10: The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders-Clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines. Geneva: Author.