I'm really curious what your perspective is on the usage-based language acquisition hypothesis, and/or construction grammar, since it's basically replaced Chomskyan nativism as the "in" language acquisition theory amongst contemporary developmental psychologists and linguists who study language acquisition. I personally think it leaves ample room for autistic language development and processing, including but not limited to echolalia and/or GLP, but of course the GLP critics think it argues their case instead. I'm happy engage in further discussion on this via another venue or modality if you're interested!
I’ve followed usage-based acquisition and construction grammar for a while—partly because they’re a welcome move away from the nativist “black box” of the LAD, and partly because they centre input, patterning, and frequency in a way that’s far closer to how I and many GLPs actually came into language. The idea that high-frequency, high-salience constructions emerge before abstract rules—and that meaning and form are inseparable—feels recognisable in a way Chomsky never did.
There’s certainly space in these frameworks for echolalia, scripting, and the gradual decomposition and recombination of gestalts. But my caution is in the application: too often, “usage-based” research still quietly centres analytic processing, treating gestalts as “formulaic multiword units” on the way to “true” generativity. The framing can still imply that we’re travelling the same road as analytic processors, just more slowly or inefficiently, rather than acknowledging that our road is different—and equally valid in its own right.
And this is where I part company with any acquisition theory as a totalising framework. Even the most GLP-compatible model is still a model. We don’t need to be absorbed into it to be legitimate. The point isn’t to prove that we “fit” usage-based or construction grammar any more than LAD—it’s to assert that our ways of coming into language stand on their own terms. If a theory can learn from that, all the better. But our existence doesn’t hinge on its ability to explain us.
I am breathless...
I'm really curious what your perspective is on the usage-based language acquisition hypothesis, and/or construction grammar, since it's basically replaced Chomskyan nativism as the "in" language acquisition theory amongst contemporary developmental psychologists and linguists who study language acquisition. I personally think it leaves ample room for autistic language development and processing, including but not limited to echolalia and/or GLP, but of course the GLP critics think it argues their case instead. I'm happy engage in further discussion on this via another venue or modality if you're interested!
I’ve followed usage-based acquisition and construction grammar for a while—partly because they’re a welcome move away from the nativist “black box” of the LAD, and partly because they centre input, patterning, and frequency in a way that’s far closer to how I and many GLPs actually came into language. The idea that high-frequency, high-salience constructions emerge before abstract rules—and that meaning and form are inseparable—feels recognisable in a way Chomsky never did.
There’s certainly space in these frameworks for echolalia, scripting, and the gradual decomposition and recombination of gestalts. But my caution is in the application: too often, “usage-based” research still quietly centres analytic processing, treating gestalts as “formulaic multiword units” on the way to “true” generativity. The framing can still imply that we’re travelling the same road as analytic processors, just more slowly or inefficiently, rather than acknowledging that our road is different—and equally valid in its own right.
And this is where I part company with any acquisition theory as a totalising framework. Even the most GLP-compatible model is still a model. We don’t need to be absorbed into it to be legitimate. The point isn’t to prove that we “fit” usage-based or construction grammar any more than LAD—it’s to assert that our ways of coming into language stand on their own terms. If a theory can learn from that, all the better. But our existence doesn’t hinge on its ability to explain us.