title: Potential communicative acts in children with autism spectrum disorders.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe potential communicative acts in a sample of 17 children with autism spectrum disorders who produced few to no intelligible words (mean age = 32.82 months).
  
  
  METHODS
  Parents reported on children's potential communicative acts for 10 different communicative functions. A potential communicative act was defined as any behavior produced by an individual that may be interpreted by others to serve a communicative purpose.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant associations were found between higher number of gesture types and increased scores on language comprehension, language expression, and non-verbal thinking measures. Relative to other types of potential communicative acts, parents reported that children used higher proportions of body movement.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Number of body movement types was not related to child ability, while number of gesture types was related to receptive and expressive language. Findings underscore the link between language and gesture, and offer support for an ecological systems perspective of language learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Saint Louis University , St. Louis, MO , USA .
authors.forename: Barbara A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Braddock
authors.forename: Colleen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pickett
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ezzelgot
authors.forename: Shivani
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sheth
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Korte-Stroff
authors.forename: Filip
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Loncke
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bock
mesh_terms: D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Autism spectrum disorders; gesture; potential communicative acts