본 연구에서는 어휘이해연령 4-6세와 평균발화길이로 맞춘 고기능 자폐아동 15명과 정상 아동 15명을 대상으로 아동들의 이야기 산출 자료를 분석하여 어휘사용능력을 살펴보았다. 두 집단 아동들의 (1) 어휘다양도 척도인 TNW와 NDW에 의한 측정치, (2) 품사별 TNW와 NDW에 의한 측정치, (3) 동사유형에 따른 산출빈도수, (4) 의미적 범주에 따른 동사의 산출빈도수에서 유의한 차이를 보이는지 알아보았다. 연구 결과, 두 집단 아동들은 (1) TNW에서 유의한 차이를 보이지 않았으나, NDW에서 유의한 차이를 보였으며, (2) 명사와 수식언의 TNW와 NDW에서 유의한 차이를 보이지 않았으나, 동사는 TNW와 NDW 모두에서 유의한 차이를 보였으며, 조사는 TNW에서만 유의한 차이를 보였으며, (3) 동사유형에 대한 산출빈도수에서 일반동사는 정상 아동이 유의하게 많이 산출한 반면, 다목적동사와 동사생략 에서 자폐 아동이 유의하게 많이 산출하였으며, (4) 의미적 범주에 따른 동사산출에서 동작동사에서는 유의한 차이를 보였으나, 상태변화동사에서는 유의한 차이를 보이지 않았다.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the lexical diversity between 15 high-functioning autistic and 15 normally developing children, who were matched with their equivalent ages of comprehension(by Korean Picture Vocabulary Test) and expression(by MLU). The participants were asked to describe the stimulus pictures from a wordless picture book, sequence cards, and event picture cards. Their narrative utterances of 100 sentences were collected from each child and analyzed using the following measures of lexical diversity: TNW, NDW, TNW and NDW of the major form class - nouns, verbs, modifiers(including adjectives, unconjugation adjective and adverbs), and function words(postpositional word), patterns in verb use(i.e., lexical verbs, GAP verbs, verb omission), semantic categories in verb use(i.e., action verb and change-of-state verb). Data were analyzed by t-tests. The results of the present study were as follows: (1) no significant group differences were found on measures of TNW, but significant differences were found on measures of NDW, (2) no significant group differences were found on lexical diversity of nouns, modifiers and function words, but significant differences were found on lexical diversity of verbs, (3) the high-functioning autistic children were much more likely to produce GAP verbs and verb omission than their language-age matched counterparts, (4) no significant differences were found on the frequency of change-of-state verbs.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the lexical diversity between 15 high-functioning autistic and 15 normally developing children, who were matched with their equivalent ages of comprehension(by Korean Picture Vocabulary Test) and expression(by MLU). The participants were asked to describe the stimulus pictures from a wordless picture book, sequence cards, and event picture cards. Their narrative utterances of 100 sentences were collected from each child and analyzed using the following measures of lexical diversity: TNW, NDW, TNW and NDW of the major form class - nouns, verbs, modifiers(including adjectives, unconjugation adjective and adverbs), and function words(postpositional word), patterns in verb use(i.e., lexical verbs, GAP verbs, verb omission), semantic categories in verb use(i.e., action verb and change-of-state verb). Data were analyzed by t-tests. The results of the present study were as follows: (1) no significant group differences were found on measures of TNW, but significant differences were found on measures of NDW, (2) no significant group differences were found on lexical diversity of nouns, modifiers and function words, but significant differences were found on lexical diversity of verbs, (3) the high-functioning autistic children were much more likely to produce GAP verbs and verb omission than their language-age matched counterparts, (4) no significant differences were found on the frequency of change-of-state verbs.