CLINICAL LINGUISTICS 1

This year, the course will focus on language and communication in autism, from early childhood to adulthood. In addition to providing students with a comprehensive overview of the different developmental profiles, communication atypicalities and interactional challenges that characterize language in autism, this course will also showcase how the experimental tools and methods of linguistics may provide a fresh perspective on language disabilities. Finally, we will also see how data from autism may illuminate foundational debates in linguistic theory.

At the end of the course the students will be familiar with different linguistic profiles that may be found both across the autism spectrum and throughout the lifespan of autistic individuals. They will be able to critically appraise the clinical and experimental literature on language in autism. The course should also raise students' awareness of the main challenges for our comprehension and description of language in autism, as well as of the theoretical and methodological issues the study of autism raises for linguistic theory.

Students are expected to be able to read scientific articles in English. Although all the notions from linguistic theory will be briefly revised whenever necessary, the students are expected to have a grasp of the core concepts of phonetics, morphology, syntax and pragmatics. Finally, basic knowledge of statistics is required to understand the experimental literature that will be discussed in class. The course will be taught in English, but students may ask questions in Italian.

The course is structured as follows:

Chapter 1/ INTRODUCTION: a brief overview of the study of autism; what can linguists bring to the study of autism; course plan and organisation
Chapter 2/ LANGUAGE TRAJECTORIES: acquisition trajectories; outcome predictors; regression; language profiles
Chapter 3/ OBSTACLES TO LANGUAGE ONSET: socio-pragmatic factors; multi-sensory integration
Chapter 4/ PHONOLOGICAL ACQUISITION: canonical babbling; consonant inventories; vowel space; oro-motor disabilities
Chapter 5/ TOWARDS PHRASE SPEECH: joint attention; expressive vs receptive vocabulary; polysemy
Chapter 6/ ATYPICAL PATH TO LANGUAGE: echolalia; unexpected bilingualism; linguistic savants; statistical learning
Chapter 7/ PRAGMATICS: beyond the Theory of Mind hypothesis; egocentric vs allocentric pragmatic processes; narratives and discourse organisation
Chapter 8/ PROSODY: acoustic correlates; a socio-linguistic perspective
Chapter 9/ NEW DIRECTIONS: double empathy framework; first impressions; gender and camouflage.
Chapter 10/ Q & A

Optional and compulsory readings for each chapter will be provided on Moodle, along with the slides used in class.

For a general introduction to the contemporary study of autism, the recommended source is;
Fletcher-Watson, Sue., & Happé, Francesca. (2019). Autism : a new introduction to psychological theory and current debate. Routledge.

For a broader overview of the history of autism:
Donvan, J., & Zucker, C. (2017). In a Different Key. The Story of Autism. Crown.

For a cautionary overview of problematic theories of and myths about autism:
Offit, P. A. (2013). Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Columbia University Press.

Students will be provided with a topic for a critical essay. They should start by feeding this topic into a generative IA of their choice, such as ChatGPT; they will next develop and amend the output provided by the IA, using the contents of the course, and discussing at least one of the compulsory readings. The final essay should be sent in a week later, be not be longer than 3000 words, excluding references, and should contain, as an annex, the prompt fed to the IA and its output.

The course will consist in interactive lectures. At the end of each chapter, students will be required to read one scientific paper related to the contents of the chapter. The subsequent lecture will start with an interactive discussion of this paper.

English

written