Social Cognition in Adolescents with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD): Evidence from the Social Attribution Task

Claire L Forrest; Vanessa Lloyd-Esenkaya; Jenny L Gibson; Michelle C St Clair

doi:10.1007/s10803-022-05698-6

Social Cognition in Adolescents with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD): Evidence from the Social Attribution Task

J Autism Dev Disord. 2023 Nov;53(11):4243-4257. doi: 10.1007/s10803-022-05698-6. Epub 2022 Aug 15.

Authors

Claire L Forrest¹, Vanessa Lloyd-Esenkaya², Jenny L Gibson³, Michelle C St Clair²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology and Human Development, IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, 25 Woburn Square, London, WC1H 0AA, UK. Claire.forrest@ucl.ac.uk.
² Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK.
³ Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

Abstract

Social cognition impairments may explain social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in individuals with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). In a novel approach, the Social Attribution Task (SAT) was used to examine this association. SAT narratives were coded from 53 participants [n = 26 DLD; n = 27 typical language development (TLD)] matched on age (M_age = 13;6) and gender (35.9% female). Parents reported SEBD. Adolescents with DLD performed worse than their TLD peers on the majority of SAT indices and had higher peer (d = 1.09) and emotional problems (d = .75). There was no association between social cognition abilities and SEBD. These exploratory findings suggest social cognition should be further examined in this population.

Keywords: Adolescents; Developmental language disorder; Social and emotional difficulties; Social cognition; Theory of mind.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Autism Spectrum Disorder*
Cognition
Female
Humans
Language Development
Language Development Disorders* / psychology
Male
Social Cognition