Poor metaphor comprehension was considered a hallmark of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but recent research has questioned the extent and the sources of these difficulties. In this cross-sectional study, we compared metaphor comprehension in individuals with ASD (N = 29) and individuals with typical development (TD; N = 31), and investigated the…

Background: There is growing understanding of the potential benefits of a multi-method approach to accurately capture language skills of children on the autism spectrum. Tools such as Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) provide an efficient means of capturing and analysing early child vocalizations (CVs) and the language learning environment.…

This study examined an insufficiently studied predictor of functional language, social motivation, in a group of 87 young children with autism spectrum disorder. Participants (age 14-31 months at the start of the study) were assessed at four times over 24 months. We tested total and indirect associations between early social motivation and later…

Background: Evidence shows that the relation with the referent (object manipulation, contact/no contact pointing) and the different hand features (index finger/open palm) when pointing indicate different levels of cognitive and linguistic attainment in typical development (TD). This evidences the close link between pointing, cognition and language…

This commentary critiques Ambridge's radical exemplar model of language acquisition using research from the Longitudinal Study of Early Language, which has tracked the language development of 30+ children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) since 2002. This research has demonstrated that the children's capacity for abstraction at the grammatical…

Children with autism spectrum disorder often have significant language delays. But do they learn language differently than neurotypical toddlers? We compared the lexical skills of 64 preverbal and minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder to 461 vocabulary-size-matched typically developing toddlers. We also examined social features…

Although water-based approaches have been shown to be beneficial for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), no study thus far has directly investigated the effects of such intervention programs on language skills. The present study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the Aquatic Speech and Language Therapy (ASLT) program, which is a new,…

Purpose: Play is a critical aspect of children's development, and researchers have long argued that symbolic deficits in play may be diagnostic of developmental disabilities. This study examined whether deficits in play emerge as a function of developmental disabilities and whether our perceptions of play are colored by differences in language and…

One of the earliest indicators of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is delay in language and social communication. Despite consensus on the benefits of earlier diagnosis and intervention, our understanding of the language growth of children with ASD during the first years of life remains limited. Therefore, this study compared communication growth…

Purpose: This study aimed to provide detailed descriptive information about the speech of a heterogeneous cohort of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to explore whether subgroups exist based on this detailed speech data. High rates of delayed and disordered speech in both low-verbal and high-functioning children with ASD have been…

Purpose: Previous studies have shown enhanced pitch and impaired time perception in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, it remains unclear whether such deviated patterns of auditory processing depending on acoustic dimensions would transfer to the higher level linguistic pitch and time processing. In this study, we compared…

This study investigates the role of recursive language and working memory (WM) in second-order false belief skills in Danish-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 62; 8 females) and typical development (n = 41; 15 females), ages 6-16. Second-order false belief skills correlated with receptive grammar, vocabulary, and age;…

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…

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…

We examined differences between children with autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children over an 8-month period in: (a) longitudinal associations between expressive and receptive vocabulary and (b) the extent to which caregiver utterances provided within an "optimal" engagement state mediated the pathway from early…