07-09-2006, 01:25 PM
People with autism often struggle to learn language, and they also struggle with personal relationships.
Scientists say that's probably not a coincidence.
There's growing evidence that language depends as much on the brain circuits that help us navigate a cocktail party as those that conjugate verbs.
One of the people who believes that evidence is Temple Grandin. She teaches animal science at Colorado State University and has written several best-selling books. She's also autistic.
Grandin says it has taken her most of her life to reach the point where she can speak with other people in a way that sounds natural. She says that's because she's had to learn language without the social abilities most people have.
Grandin didn't begin speaking until she was 3 ½ years old. Her first words referred to things, not people, she says.
"I'd point at something that I wanted, you know like a piece of candy or whatever, and say, 'there,'" Grandin says.
She wasn't using language to reach out to her parents or to other children, the way most kids do, so she didn't have the same motivation to talk.
A Tool for Information, or Attention?
When Grandin finally did become interested in words, it was because they provided a way to get information, not attention.
"When I was in third grade, I had trouble with reading, so mother taught me how to read," she says. It opened up a world full of "so many interesting things," she recalls: "I used to like to get the World Book Encyclopedia and read it."
But the encyclopedia taught her little about using language to make friends. Even when she got to high school, chit-chat and gossip meant nothing to her.
She says that made her teenage years the worst part of her life. "Kids teased me, called me tape recorder because when I talked it was kind of like just using the same phrases."
She also kept talking, without letting other people respond.
Grandin and many others with autism have no problem with the mechanics of language, says Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at University of California, San Diego. But they don't understand what's really going on in many conversations.
"That's one of the hallmarks of autism," he says, "difficulty with social interaction, manifest both in spoken language and in just lack of empathy. The ability to understand other minds would be one way of describing it."
The Role of Mind Reading
Ramachandran says it's hard to use language if you don't have any idea what someone else is thinking and feeling.
That may seem obvious. But in the past, researchers have treated language as if it were primarily a system of rules. They assumed that people spoke because every human brain came pre-wired with a "universal grammar."
Now, a growing number of researchers, including Ramachandran, argue that the social and emotional aspects of language are at least as important as the rules for stringing words together.
Emotional Neurons
Ramachandran says one reason for the new thinking is a new understanding of the human brain. He says it's become clear that babies' brains are programmed to imitate.
"You stick your tongue out at a newborn baby, very often the newborn baby will stick its tongue out," he says.
Similarly, babies return smiles and often make sounds when someone speaks to them.
A few years ago, scientists found a biological explanation for this phenomenon: specialized brain cells called mirror neurons.
These neurons fire when you do things such as sticking your tongue out. They also fire when you watch someone else stick their tongue out.
And mirror neurons can reflect emotions as well as physical actions. Experiments show that some of the same cells that fire when we feel pain also fire when we see another person in pain.
But people with autism appear to have faulty mirror neurons. That may be why they have trouble putting themselves in someone else's shoes. And Ramachandran says without that ability, a lot of what you can accomplish with language disappears.
"You have to be aware of the effects that your words are having on the other person's mind," he says. Otherwise, how could we use words to manipulate other people?
by Jon Hamilton on npr.org
Scientists say that's probably not a coincidence.
There's growing evidence that language depends as much on the brain circuits that help us navigate a cocktail party as those that conjugate verbs.
One of the people who believes that evidence is Temple Grandin. She teaches animal science at Colorado State University and has written several best-selling books. She's also autistic.
Grandin says it has taken her most of her life to reach the point where she can speak with other people in a way that sounds natural. She says that's because she's had to learn language without the social abilities most people have.
Grandin didn't begin speaking until she was 3 ½ years old. Her first words referred to things, not people, she says.
"I'd point at something that I wanted, you know like a piece of candy or whatever, and say, 'there,'" Grandin says.
She wasn't using language to reach out to her parents or to other children, the way most kids do, so she didn't have the same motivation to talk.
A Tool for Information, or Attention?
When Grandin finally did become interested in words, it was because they provided a way to get information, not attention.
"When I was in third grade, I had trouble with reading, so mother taught me how to read," she says. It opened up a world full of "so many interesting things," she recalls: "I used to like to get the World Book Encyclopedia and read it."
But the encyclopedia taught her little about using language to make friends. Even when she got to high school, chit-chat and gossip meant nothing to her.
She says that made her teenage years the worst part of her life. "Kids teased me, called me tape recorder because when I talked it was kind of like just using the same phrases."
She also kept talking, without letting other people respond.
Grandin and many others with autism have no problem with the mechanics of language, says Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at University of California, San Diego. But they don't understand what's really going on in many conversations.
"That's one of the hallmarks of autism," he says, "difficulty with social interaction, manifest both in spoken language and in just lack of empathy. The ability to understand other minds would be one way of describing it."
The Role of Mind Reading
Ramachandran says it's hard to use language if you don't have any idea what someone else is thinking and feeling.
That may seem obvious. But in the past, researchers have treated language as if it were primarily a system of rules. They assumed that people spoke because every human brain came pre-wired with a "universal grammar."
Now, a growing number of researchers, including Ramachandran, argue that the social and emotional aspects of language are at least as important as the rules for stringing words together.
Emotional Neurons
Ramachandran says one reason for the new thinking is a new understanding of the human brain. He says it's become clear that babies' brains are programmed to imitate.
"You stick your tongue out at a newborn baby, very often the newborn baby will stick its tongue out," he says.
Similarly, babies return smiles and often make sounds when someone speaks to them.
A few years ago, scientists found a biological explanation for this phenomenon: specialized brain cells called mirror neurons.
These neurons fire when you do things such as sticking your tongue out. They also fire when you watch someone else stick their tongue out.
And mirror neurons can reflect emotions as well as physical actions. Experiments show that some of the same cells that fire when we feel pain also fire when we see another person in pain.
But people with autism appear to have faulty mirror neurons. That may be why they have trouble putting themselves in someone else's shoes. And Ramachandran says without that ability, a lot of what you can accomplish with language disappears.
"You have to be aware of the effects that your words are having on the other person's mind," he says. Otherwise, how could we use words to manipulate other people?
by Jon Hamilton on npr.org