We explored whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learn new nouns from overheard speech. Thirteen children (4-5 years) with ASD participated in an Addressed condition, in which they were directly taught a novel label (e.g., "toma") for one of three novel objects, and an Overheard condition, in which the objects and label…

This study investigated whether children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can learn vocabulary from linguistic context. Thirty-five children with ASD (18 with age-appropriate structural language; 17 with language impairment [ALI]) and 29 typically developing peers were taught 20 Science words. Half were presented in linguistic context from…

Thirty-four children, with autism spectrum disorders, ages 4-14 years, were matched and randomly assigned to one of two conditions for learning a novel juice-making task and producing two novel words about the event. Seventeen sighted children were manually guided to perform the task and tactually prompted during imitated productions of novel…