Abstract
Children with ASD show great variability in their overall linguistic profile. ASD and developmental language disorders (DLD) are seen today as co-morbid conditions. Researchers differentiate between individuals with ASD who have language impairments (ALI-Autism Language Impaired) and those who develop typical language (ALN- Autism Language Normal). This chapter describes the difference between communication, language comprehension, and speech production which together constitute the areas that dictate the linguistic profile of individuals with ASD.
While grammar (i.e., phonology, morphology and syntax) is generally viewed as less impaired in ASD, semantics and pragmatics are areas of salient difficulty in this population. We discuss those linguistic features that are persisting over time in ASD: a. A delay in the emergence of first words and the difficulty in generalizing the meanings of new words; b. A rote learning of words and sentences, including idioms and citations from books and movies, that indicate deficits in language processing abilities; c. Echolalia, which reflects non communicative use of speech; and d. Pronoun reversals as an evidence for the difficulty in separating “self” from “others”. We review recent findings on the unique speech characteristics of individuals with ASD, which is often characterized as being un-intelligible, or such that attracts the listeners’ attention as being robotic, too loud/ soft, and not fluent. We present studies examining the association between symptom severity of RRBI and the linguistic, cognitive and adaptive skills of children with ASD. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research conclude the chapter.
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Dromi, E., Oren, A., Mimouni-Bloch, A. (2021). Language Comprehension and Speech Production in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Psycho-Linguistic Insights on Restricted, Repetitive Behaviors and Interests. In: Gal, E., Yirmiya, N. (eds) Repetitive and Restricted Behaviors and Interests in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Autism and Child Psychopathology Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66445-9_9
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