Beyond pragmatics: morphosyntactic development in autism.
Language acquisition research in autism has traditionally focused on high-level pragmatic deficits. Few studies have examined grammatical abilities in autism, with mixed findings. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by providing a detailed investigation of syntactic and higher-level discourse abilities in verbal children with autism, age 5 years. Findings indicate clear language difficulties that go beyond what would be expected based on developmental level; specifically, syntactic delays, impairments in discourse management and increased production of non-meaningful words (jargon). The present study indicates a highly specific pattern of language impairments, and importantly, syntactic delays, in a group of children with autism carefully matched on lexical level and non-verbal mental age with children with developmental delays and typical development.
Eigsti
Inge-Marie
IM
Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA. inge-marie.eigsti@uconn.edu
Bennetto
Loisa
L
Dadlani
Mamta B
MB
D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013195:Stanford-Binet Test; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary