UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Atypicalities in sleep and semantic consolidation in autism

Fletcher, FE; Knowland, V; Walker, S; Gaskell, MG; Norbury, C; Henderson, LM; (2019) Atypicalities in sleep and semantic consolidation in autism. Developmental Science 10.1111/desc.12906. (In press). Green open access

[thumbnail of Fletcher_et_al-2019-Developmental_Science.pdf]
Preview
Text
Fletcher_et_al-2019-Developmental_Science.pdf - Published Version

Download (887kB) | Preview

Abstract

Sleep is known to support the neocortical consolidation of declarative memory, in‐ cluding the acquisition of new language. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often characterized by both sleep and language learning difficulties, but few studies have explored a potential connection between the two. Here, 54 children with and without ASD (matched on age, nonverbal ability and vocabulary) were taught nine rare animal names (e.g., pipa). Memory was assessed via definitions, naming and speeded semantic decision tasks immediately after learning (pre‐sleep), the next day (post‐sleep, with a night of polysomnography between pre‐ and post‐sleep tests) and roughly 1 month later (follow‐up). Both groups showed comparable performance at pre‐test and similar levels of overnight change on all tasks; but at follow‐up children with ASD showed significantly greater forgetting of the unique features of the new animals (e.g., pipa is a flat frog). Children with ASD had significantly lower central non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sigma power. Associations between spindle properties and overnight changes in speeded semantic decisions differed by group. For the TD group, spindle duration predicted overnight changes in responses to novel animals but not familiar animals, reinforcing a role for sleep in the stabilization of new semantic knowledge. For the ASD group, sigma power and spindle duration were associated with improvements in responses to novel and particularly familiar animals, perhaps reflecting more general sleep‐associated improvements in task performance. Plausibly, microstructural sleep atypicalities in children with ASD and differences in how information is prioritized for consolidation may lead to cumulative consolidation difficulties, compromising the quality of newly formed semantic representations in long‐term memory.

Type: Article
Title: Atypicalities in sleep and semantic consolidation in autism
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/desc.12906
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12906
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, children, memory consolidation, sleep, vocabulary, word learning
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10086248
Downloads since deposit
79Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item