Natalie Richard studied Psychology at Lancaster University.
“To date, research investigating picture understanding in both typical development and autism has focused on children’s ability to identify the meanings of words when paired with pictures. This study will advance knowledge by exploring children’s ability to identify, retain, and generalise the meanings of words learned from pictures that vary in iconicity (colour vs black-and-white pictures). In experimental tasks designed for children with minimal language, participants will pair a series of unfamiliar words with pictures of unfamiliar objects. After a 5-minute delay, we will assess their memory of the words’ meanings and how they generalise the words to different pictures and objects. We predict that the children with ASD will be more accurate when learning words from colour pictures (which share more visual features with the things they represent) than black-and-white pictures (which share fewer visual features with the things they represent). Our findings could have important implications for the selection of visual symbols for use when administering picture-based communication interventions.”
We received this summary of Natalie’s research findings:
Thank you Natalie for choosing Abbot’s Lea School to carry out your research. Our students had a lot of fun!
Come and visit us again soon!
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