John B,
You wrote:
You're not going to find a "specific" set of words that autistic
children use. First, autism is a spectrum of symptoms, not causes, that
range from high-performing to those incapable of any communications.
I agree, but what I meant (whatever I actually said) was that knowing a specific person’s vocabulary as commonly used in their writing or speaking would yield a specific vocabulary for that specific person.
Since there are low performing and high performing autistics, they should each have different vocabularies, which could help explain why certain deficits or empathies cause certain deviations in language usage from the average of the same population class.
To give another example, the commonly used Myers-Briggs personality explanation divides the population of normals into 16 types, with 4 major subtypes. I know from experience at Hughes, where lots of us studied this personality text, it was commonly easy for most people to identify others with the same characteristic personality responses. However, there are those who empathize so deeply with others, either positively or negatively, that they see commonalities with every personality type, some of which they judge bad or good depending on the observer’s empathies.
It’s the approach of using vocabularies for specific persons that I think will pay off in this investigation. Whether it fits with autistics or not, the only evidence I have for that is the paper I quoted.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Bottoms
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2014 9:29 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] [Corpora-List] CFP: Special Research Topic on "Models of Reference" (Frontiers in Psychology)
Rich,
You're not going to find a "specific" set of words that autistic
children use. First, autism is a spectrum of symptoms, not causes, that
range from high-performing to those incapable of any communications.
Also, there is the issue that humans have a connectionist architecture
that is non-deterministic. The autistic child that spend a lot of time
with doctors and clinicians will have a different vocabulary than those
who do not.
If you really would like to pursue this avenue of exploration, I suggest
Carol Chomsky's work on child language acquisition in which she examines
how more complex concepts are displayed during play. ("The Acquisition
of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10", Chomsky MIT Press, No. 57, Pgs. 125.)
There are a number of similar works but her's is quite readable.There
are also vocabulary lists for children such as "Baby 25".
> http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/2-year-old-25-words-researchers-article-1.1025968
Finally, there is research such as this, that looks at some of the
abstract concepts of children.
> http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/september/toddler-language-gap-091213.html
-John Bottoms
FirstStar Systems
Concord, MA USA
On 11/4/2014 10:54 AM, Rich Cooper wrote:
> Yes, I had seen the article on Gus and Siri, and that piqued my interest, but it might provide more insight into autism if we knew specific words that autistics seldom (or never) use. That would indicate that the unused words indicate concepts which autistics can't form in their natural state. That should stimulate some studies on brain imaging under verbal stimuli, seeing the difference in scans between autistics and "normal".
>
> So I think the vocabulary they don't use, yet normal use every day, should help understand the mapping of those words to the brain regions where they are recognized and processed.
>
> -Rich
>
> Sincerely,
> Rich Cooper
> EnglishLogicKernel.com
> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
> 9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2014 7:50 AM
> To: Rich Cooper; '[ontolog-forum] '
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] [Corpora-List] CFP: Special Research Topic on "Models of Reference" (Frontiers in Psychology)
>
> On 11/4/2014 10:02 AM, Rich Cooper wrote:
>> how autism deficits affect the patient’s “Theory of Mind” since those
>> are often patients with deep communication deficits. How autistic kids
>> grow and communicate must have some valuable information about how the
>> mind works.
> Yes. There was an article in the NY Times about a 13-year-old
> autistic boy who found it much easier to talk with Siri than with
> actual humans. URL and excerpts below.
>
> It provides some insights into autistic language -- and into ways
> of designing user interfaces for all humans, autistic or not.
>
> John
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/fashion/how-apples-siri-became-one-autistic-boys-bff.html
>
> To Siri, With Love
> How One Boy With Autism Became BFF With Apple’s Siri
>
> By JUDITH NEWMAN, OCT. 17, 2014
>
> Gus has autism, and Siri, Apple’s “intelligent personal assistant”
> on the iPhone, is currently his BFF... After a while I heard this:
>
> Gus: “You’re a really nice computer.”
>
> Siri: “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
>
> Gus: “You are always asking if you can help me. Is there anything you want?”
>
> Siri: “Thank you, but I have very few wants.”
>
> Gus: “O.K.! Well, good night!”
>
> Siri: “Ah, it’s 5:06 p.m.”
>
> Gus: “Oh sorry, I mean, goodbye.”
>
> Siri: “See you later!”
>
> She doesn’t let my communications-impaired son get away with anything.
> Indeed, many of us wanted an imaginary friend, and now we have one.
> Only she’s not entirely imaginary...
>
> Gus had never noticed Siri before, but when he discovered there was
> someone who would not just find information on his various obsessions
> (trains, planes, buses, escalators and, of course, anything related
> to weather) but actually semi-discuss these subjects tirelessly, he
> was hooked. And I was grateful...
>
> Online critics have claimed that Siri’s voice recognition is not
> as accurate as the assistant in, say, the Android, but for some of
> us, this is a feature, not a bug. Gus speaks as if he has marbles
> in his mouth, but if he wants to get the right response from Siri,
> he must enunciate clearly...
>
> She is also wonderful for someone who doesn’t pick up on social cues:
> Siri’s responses are not entirely predictable, but they are predictably
> kind — even when Gus is brusque. I heard him talking to Siri about
> music, and Siri offered some suggestions. “I don’t like that kind of
> music,” Gus snapped. Siri replied, “You’re certainly entitled to your
> opinion.” Siri’s politeness reminded Gus what he owed Siri. “Thank you
> for that music, though,” Gus said. Siri replied, “You don’t need to
> thank me.” “Oh, yes,” Gus added emphatically, “I do.”
>
> My son’s practice conversation with Siri is translating into more
> facility with actual humans. Yesterday I had the longest conversation
> with him that I’ve ever had. Admittedly, it was about different
> species of turtles and whether I preferred the red-eared slider to
> the diamond-backed terrapin. This might not have been my choice of
> topic, but it was back and forth, and it followed a logical trajectory.
>
> ...
>
> Gus: “Siri, will you marry me?”
>
> Siri: “I’m not the marrying kind.”
>
> Gus: “I mean, not now. I’m a kid. I mean when I’m grown up.”
>
> Siri: “My end user agreement does not include marriage.”
>
> Gus: “Oh, O.K.”
>
> Gus: “Goodnight, Siri. Will you sleep well tonight?”
>
> Siri: “I don’t need much sleep, but it’s nice of you to ask.”
>
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