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)…

According to the weak central coherence (CC) account individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit enhanced local processing and weak part-whole integration. CC was investigated in the verbal domain. Adolescents, recruited using a 2 (ASD status) by 2 (language impairment status) design, completed an aural forced choice comprehension…

A new language measure, the Observation of Spontaneous Expressive Language (OSEL), is intended to document spontaneous use of syntax, pragmatics, and semantics in 2-12-year-old children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other communication disorders with expressive language levels comparable to typical 2-5 year olds. Because the purpose of…

Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have reading comprehension difficulties, but the level of processing at which comprehension is most vulnerable and the influence of language phenotype on comprehension skill is currently unclear. We explored comprehension at sentence and passage levels across language phenotypes. Children with ASD…

The authors review research on attempts to promote speech acquisition in severely handicapped students. Studies on verbal imitation, syntactic forms, and semantics are summarized. Implications for instruction are noted, including careful selection of responses likely to occur in the child's normal environment and which have intrinsic reinforcing…

Six autistic children and seven children with relatively specific language impairment were asked to act out a series of sentences. Both groups made little use of a semantically based probable event strategy but were more likely to use a syntactically based word order strategy, similar to normals matched for receptive language age. (Author/DB)

A study of five adult males with autism investigated which combination of input/output modalities (typed or spoken) enhanced the syntactic, semantic, and/or pragmatic performance of individuals with autism when engaging in conversations with a normal language adult. Results found that typed communications facilitated the use of longer utterances.…