This study investigated the communication skills of children with autism spectrum disorders (H. M. Geurts & M. Embrechts), Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Hilde M Geurts & Mariëtte Embrechts), and learning disability (H. M. Geurts & M. Embrechts) using the Children Communication Checklist to identify any commonalities in…

Thirty-one children with and without autism spectrum disorder were asked to draw the meaning of 10 basic concepts. Following each drawing, children explained their drawing to the experimenter. Transcripts of the drawing task were coded for children's use of personal pronouns and internal state terms. Children's use of on- and off-task comments…

The language and social skill deficits associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) warrant further study. Existing research has focused on the contributions of pragmatic language to social skills, with little attention to other aspects of language. We examined the associations across three language domains (semantics, syntax, and pragmatics)…

Conclusions about the efficacy of tele-therapy for parent-mediated intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are limited, due to the shortage of direct comparisons between tele-therapy and traditional face-to-face therapy. In this study, we implemented a parent training program, which targeted on language facilitating…

Purpose: Several studies have reported that "useful speech" at 5 years of age predicts outcomes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but this skill has been vaguely defined. This study investigates which specific aspects of expressive language in children with ASD best predict adult language and communication outcomes.…

Background: Sleep problems are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is also emerging evidence that sleep quality influences language learning in typical development. However, there is a gap within the literature in regards to sleep and developmental language disorder in children (DLD). Objectives: The aims of this study…

The aim of the current study was two-fold. First, it evaluated the influence of bilingualism on syntactic abilities and verbal memory of children with High Functioning Autism (HFA). Second, it explored the relationship between syntactic abilities and verbal memory of children with HFA and typical language development (TLD). Eighty-six monolingual…

This study addresses the question as to what cognitive abilities influence performance on article choice and direct object scrambling in high-functioning Dutch-speaking children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Schaeffer (2016/2018) shows that a group of 27 high-functioning Dutch-speaking children with ASD, aged 5-14, overgenerates the…

Two studies were conducted to investigate how high-functioning children with autism use different linguistic cues in sentence comprehension. Two types of linguistic cues were investigated: word order and morphosyntactic cues. The results show that children with autism can use both types of cues in sentence comprehension. However, compared to…

Purpose: In typical development, distributional cues--patterns in input--are related to language acquisition processes. Statistical and implicit learning refer to the utilization of such cues. In children with intellectual disability, much less is known about the extent to which distributional cues are harnessed in mechanisms of language learning.…

Background: According to the linguistic determinism approach, knowledge of sentential complements such as: "John says that the earth" is flat plays a crucial role in theory of mind (ToM) development by providing a means to represent explicitly people's mental attitudes and beliefs. This approach predicts that mastery of complements…

The current study examined delays in syntax and morphology, and vocabulary, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children ages 4-6 years with ASD (n = 21) and typical development (n = 21), matched on nonverbal mental age, completed five language tasks. The ASD group had significant delays in both syntax and morphology, and vocabulary measures, with…

Background and aims: High quality student-teacher relationships (STR) are important for children's academic and social development. We explore how individual child language domains (semantics, syntax, pragmatics), teacher years of experience, and classroom placement (general or special education) relate to STR quality for children with autism…

Two 6-year-old male fraternal twins each received 8 weeks of morphosyntactic and phonological intervention in counterbalanced order. Progress occurred for most targets and measures, with each child making greater progress for either phonology or morphosyntax during the corresponding unitary-domain block. Gains were maintained during the subsequent…

It has been proposed that language impairments in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) stem from atypical neural processing of speech and/or nonspeech sounds. However, the strength of this proposal is compromised by the unreliable outcomes of previous studies of speech and nonspeech processing in ASD. The aim of this study was to…