Participant Information and Transcripts-Beyond Caregiver Input in the Complex Syntax of Autistic Children: A study of ba and bei constructions in Mandarin

This dataset comprises transcription data from 30-minute semi-structured play sessions collected from 54 Mandarin-speaking autistic children (mean age = 4;06) and 56 typically developing children (mean age = 2;03), matched on expressive vocabulary. The focus is on the production of two complex Mandarin syntactic structures—the non-canonical ba and bei constructions—and examines the influence of caregiver input on their acquisition. Data coding includes counts of ba and bei constructions in children’s speech as well as measures of caregiver input, such as mean length of utterances (MLU).Key findings include:Autistic children produced significantly fewer ba constructions compared to their TD peers.No significant correlations were found between caregiver input and the production of ba or bei constructions in either group.In TD children, a positive correlation between caregiver MLU and children’s ba production was observed.Children’s own MLU predicted their production of ba constructions in both groups.These results suggest that the development of complex syntax in autistic children depends not only on caregiver input but also on global syntactic abilities and potentially attentional resources. This dataset is valuable for researchers investigating language development, autism spectrum disorder, and syntactic acquisition.