Training syntax: Linguistic and cognitive benefits in children with DLD or ASD

Theory of Mind (ToM) is often problematic in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and may also be in those with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). A predictive link has been established in both populations between 1) understanding of complement clauses, such as Mary thinks/says the earth is flat, and 2) performance on ToM tasks, particularly those assessing false beliefs. This study evaluated the effectiveness of training complements on ToM development in 80 children, including 20 typically developing children, 30 children with DLD, and 30 children with ASD. The results obtained highlight the effectiveness of this syntactic training on the comprehension of false beliefs in subjects with ASD or TDL and thus suggests new avenues of cognitive remediation for these populations.