Children and adults who have an autism spectrum disorder will differ from one another in the comprehension of the speech messages of others and in their response to strategies that might facilitate a communicative exchange

I can type in clear, grammatical sentences much of the time. Therefore, people assume that I am saying everything I can say through typing. I've even had people tell me, "Well okay so you can type, and you can substitute that for speech, so where's the communication problem?" Well... there's a bunch of stuff I still can't say through typing. And I have trouble switching between one communication device and another. The stuff I have trouble saying through typing is some of the most immediately concerning stuff, such as "I have to go to the bathroom" or "I am thirsty". I can sign "toilet" and "water" in sign language, and I can, if presented with a set of symbols, point to "toilet" or "water", but it's difficult for me to type things like that while they're happening, or go and grab the symbols when I need them.

Many autistic people have trouble with real-time speech. Some of us find it easier to either avoid speech in favor of other modes of communication, while others find it useful to use less interactive forms of communication. However, there are a lot of questions and concerns autistic people have regarding non-typical forms of communication - questions like, "How will people respond", "What are my alternatives", and "Is desiring not to talk legitimate?"

This study examined irrelevant/incorrect answers produced by children with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism (7-9-year-olds and 10-12-year-olds) and normally developing children (7-9-year-olds). The errors produced were divided into three types: in Type 1, the child answered the original question incorrectly, in Type 2, the child gave a correct answer, but when asked a follow-up question, he/she explained the answer incorrectly, and in Type 3, the child first gave a correct answer or explanation, but continued answering, which ultimately led to an irrelevant answer. Analyses of Type 1 and 2 errors indicated that all the children tried to utilize contextual information, albeit incorrectly. Analyses of Type 3 errors showed that topic drifts were almost non-existent in the control group, but common in the clinical group, suggesting that these children had difficulties in stopping processing after deriving a relevant answer. Learning outcomes: The reader becomes aware of the different instances which may lead to the irrelevance of answers and get knowledge about features of answers of children with AS/HFA.

Information for parents concerned about a child who seems to be late to start talking; teachers with an apraxic child in the classroom; speech language pathologists wishing to become more fully informed about apraxia.

A number of individuals on other lists, all with AS, have indicated that as adults, they have selective mutism. A number of us literally don't have the words at certain moments. We remember such experiences as children as well, especially when exposed to an overwhelming environment or event. The fact that a child or adult has selective mutism does not mean that we fail to respond to or absorb the experience.

The purpose of this article is to identify some of the questions that you might be asked during a language/communication assessment for program eligibility or for a diagnosis.

A prospective look at a psychological phenomenon designed to illustrate what is involved in getting to grips with logical modelling in a new area.

This lecture was the fifth in a sequence given to the Summer School of the European Society for Logic, Language and Information at Trento August 2002, jointly with Michiel van Lambalgen of Amsterdam University. The first four lectures were on topics in the logical modelling of psychological data on human reasoning--the `suppression effect', Wason's `selection task', syllogistic reasoning among others. This last lecture was a prospective look at a psychological phenomenon designed to illustrate what is involved in getting to grips with logical modelling in a new area. It is therefore a highly tentative first look and contains no modelling of data. However, the default reasoning models proposed in the earlier lectures are a guide to the kind of approach we have in mind.

Other autistic children may communicate with words but lack understanding or the ability to recognise the social side of communication (body language and tone). But also they themselves may not be communicating with their body and tone. Their body language can be awkward or uncomfortable, with eye gaze and an apparent lack of engagement. The speech can be monotone or non-emotional and the volume may be loud or not fitting to the situation. But also the word structure may not be clear, the language can be literal, there may be interruptions and the subject may become confused which is likely to be a reflection of how confusing certain things are to them.

The communication problems of autism vary, depending upon the intellectual and social development of the individual. Some may be unable to speak, whereas others may have rich vocabularies and are able to talk about topics of interest in great depth. Despite this variation, the majority of autistic individuals have little or no problem with pronunciation. Most have difficulty effectively using language. Many also have problems with word and sentence meaning, intonation, and rhythm.

We present in this paper the point of view of Pragmatics of Language, based on the theoretical model of Kasher (1991), under which the autistic core impairments are analysed in terms of the knowledge required for the various pragmatic areas.

The autistic child's hyper- emotionality, hyper-sensitivity, would be the result of the lack of language, of all means of social communication.

The existence of autistic communicators reveals less about the account to be given of normal linguistic communication than about the flexibility of the demands on ordinary notions of communication.

Offering The Grammar Trainer, software that teaches grammar through text and pictures. In comparison with all other language software, the GrammarTrainer: 1. was designed by a professional linguist for her autistic son; 2. employs an unprecedented level of linguistic sophistication; 3. asks the child to respond actively by typing in his answer letter by letter; 4. gives detailed, incremental, carefully-worded linguistic feedback; 5. interactively guides the child towards the correct answer; 6. covers the broadest range of grammar topics: from simple phrases through complex sentences; 7. ensures that the child internalizes what he learns.

Specific language impairment, or SLI, also known as developmental language disorder, has symptoms that sometimes overlap those of autism. The disorders share the same spot on the human genome, meaning they are probably related.

I have a right to communicate in whatever means is possible for me to communicate. I have the right to choose what means of communication is appropriate for me. If I am unable to speak, I should certainly be given other options.

Clinical scholar, researcher and consultant to young children with ASD's and their families. Director of Childhood Communication Services and an Adjunct Professor in the Center for Human Development, Brown University.

The article was written to support the use of play as a medium to extend and enrich the communicative exchanges and, more specifically, the symbolic language of children on the autistic spectrum. The first argument in support of such use of play lies within the features of autistic communication, and particularly the extreme challenges encountered in imaginative play and narrative thought. The second argument on behalf of play lies within the selection of specific inter- vention strategies, which are discussed subsequently. Finally, the article presents a case illustration of how adult facilitated dramatic peer play led to a breakthrough in a range of symbolic behaviours in a 9-year- old girl with autism, who up to that point had not progressed beyond a semi-communicative use of echolalia, best described as ‘situation association’.

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.

Thankfully, the blog is an equalizer of humans, serving the autism community well at this point in time. It is a universe, a "sphere" without rules, without barriers -- faceless, sometimes nameless. It transcends some physical and attitudinal barriers and in this realm, one cannot judge another based on appearance or so-called levels of "functioning."... When writing, an autistic person can experience inertia. Blogs enable time to pass without further handicapping the autistic person to communicate when the will to do so is fluid... Blogging and email communication are invisible, fluid highways to change the face of rights and acceptance of autistic people as thinking, vital human beings and further, raises issues about how we treat disabled members of society as a whole.

We report a whole-brain MRI morphometric survey of asymmetry in children with high-functioning autism and with developmental language disorder (DLD). Autism and DLD were much more similar to each other in patterns of asymmetry throughout the cerebral cortex than either was to controls; this similarity suggests systematic and related alterations rather than random neural systems alterations. We review these findings in relation to previously reported volumetric features in these two samples of brains, including increased total brain and white matter volumes and lack of increase in the size of the corpus callosum. Larger brain volume has previously been associated with increased lateralization. The sizeable right-asymmetry increase reported here may be a consequence of early abnormal brain growth trajectories in these disorders, while higher-order association areas may be most vulnerable to connectivity abnormalities associated with white matter increases.

We want others to recognize that we are competent people who do make our own decisions about our lives in our own way ~ and we will work together to overcome other people's ideas about what we can and cannot do.

By establishing a positive routine, and then disrupting it, we create an incentive for the child to communicate in order to re-establish the familiar routine.

Typical children build their knowledge base of idioms one idiom at a time. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are no different BUT they may need more help both inside and outside of the school setting.

While parents and experts agree that many of our children with Autism-related conditions show unusual behavior, there are various interpretations as to why. Some will call these behaviors "maladaptive" and will aim to eliminate them through behavior training. Some believe that the child is seeking attention, and will ignore them. Professionals using a sensory processing/integration approach, however, interpret the behaviors as a language which children use to communicate their wants and needs to those around them. If we can learn this language, we can start building new ways of communicating with our children.

Although caregiver concerns provide important information, using only caregiver concerns as a screening tool may result in too many over-referrals of children with no risks and too many under-referrals of children in need of services.

Researchers should evaluate what changes children make in their social and communicative behaviors when parents begin to apply strategies that increase their responsivity and contingency to their children's communication.

Michelle Garcia Winner, speech language pathologist and specialist for persons with social cognitive deficits is internationally recognized as an innovative therapist, energetic and enthusiastic workshop presenter and author based in San Jose, Ca. where she runs her private practice, The Center for Social Thinking. Michelle and her team specialize in developing further understanding and educational strategies for helping persons with social thinking/social communicative deficits.

Autism is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder of genetic origin. Among the primary characteristics of autism are impairments not only in language but also in communication. In this chapter I address the challenge of studying language development in children who lack the basic motivation to communicate with others, even when they may have acquired some linguistic competence.

Seeks to understand how language problems result in learning, social, and personal problems during childhood; to develop better standards for diagnosis; and to learn what factors cause or place children at-risk for language learning problems.

Although Albert Einstein reportedly did not talk until he was 3, parents should not be lulled into a false sense of security that the genius within will emerge when the child is ready, experts say.

The origin of the absence of spoken language is different for each subject. This is why the way we envision the work with each one is singular.

The aims of phonology are to demonstrate the patterns of distinctive sound contrasts in a language, and to explain the ways speech sounds are organised and represented in the mind.

Clinical and educational resource center for families and professionals responsible for Late Talking Children.

Early diagnosis, supported swiftly with opportunities for the child with Autism to socialise in a supportive environment will ensure he or she will make the transition to school with confidence.

All persons, regardless of the extent or severity of their disabilities, have a basic right to affect, through communication, the conditions of their own existence.

Information on disorders related to speech, language and hearing difficulties.

Children with autism are more likely to be successful communicators in environments that are designed to encourage and support their efforts. The child must see a reason to communicate; the child must have a means to communicate.

Visual language and augmentative communication systems for individuals with pervasive developmental disorders and autism are presented as both a legitimate language and an effective strategy. Using the natural aided language paradigm and picture symbols or printed words, language stimulation is implemented in natural environments to increase communication, interaction, participation, and compliance.

Many difficulties that young gifted children experience are derived from a socio-cultural environment that views expressions of giftedness as aberrant behaviour. By invalidating their ideas we invalidate them and minimize their potential for achievement.

Provides examples of several classes of communication messages, shows a variety of ways or means of communicating a message, and supplies examples of messages that are not always consciously signaled by the child/adult with disabilities.

Basic units of language; early language acquisition; growth in language; increased complexity; generalization; focus

We argue that the excessive use of the regular -s plural in WS results from an impairment of the lexical system and/or its access mechanisms.

Children with autism take to the computer like a fish to water. First of all, the computer can be very predictable. Engaging animation is often included with these programs. Visual focus is on material that is illustrated on a vertical plane.

Language impairment is a defining feature of autism. However, remarkably little work has been done to determine the exact nature of the impairment or its underlying cause(s), and studies of the spontaneous language of people with autism are particularly rare. The immediate aim of the study is to test the broad hypothesis that concept formation, and hence vocabulary, is abnormal in autism.

The ball represents the conversation itself. We used a physical ball and by passing it to the person who would speak next, it demonstrated the idea that a conversation involves more than one person.

Analysis of conversations (exchange structure, turn-taking, repair and cohesion ) may be more useful than conventional language tests for identifying linguistic abnormalities in children with semantic-pragmatic disorder.

Children with SPD disorder frequently misunderstood the literal or implicit meaning or implicit meaning of adult utterances and they violated normal rules of exchange structure. They tended to provide the listener with too much or too little information.

...there is a subset of the language-impaired population who have broader communicative impairments, extending beyond basic difficulties in mastering language form, reflecting difficulty in responding to and expressing communicative intents.

Research in the past has often focused on the communication 'deficits' of children with autism and minimal or no speech. This study, by Carol Potter and Chris Whittaker, took a different approach and explored both the children's communication capabilities and the ways in which communication environments in schools can enable or disable them in their attempts to become spontaneous communicators.

A recognized challenge in the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is the assessment of the individual skills and preferences of potential users of AAC. Particularly in cognitive assessment, many traditional methods are inappropriate because they require the participant to produce a verbal response and/or involve complex verbal instructions. For individuals with limited verbal forms of language, failure at such tasks is relatively uninstructive, either for revealing their functional intellectual status or for developing effective interventions. This paper presents a demonstration of a method developed to evaluate category structure and, thus, semantic organization in individuals with limited verbal skills concomitant to autism spectrum disorder. This method offers a promising tool for assessing clients for AAC. Further potential uses of this method, both clinically and in research, are discussed.

Communication is a range of purposeful behavior which is used with intent within the structure of social exchanges, to transmit information, observations, or internal states, or to bring about changes in the immediate environment.

Mr. Bean is so successful that his stage character makes many people laugh. However, unfortunately, if you have Asperger syndrome you do not have to work hard to build an act of literal translation, it comes naturally.

Given the non-significant association between dyadic orienting and delayed language onset, especially compared to non-autistic children, is also possible that current language skills may assist children with dyadic social interaction.

We hypothesized that the difficulties of the child with autism originate from disorders of organization and regulation of actions according to environmental changes. Autism impoverishes general mental representation skills, which are the basis of symbolic play and the development of communication. Twenty-one children with autism were compared with 14 children with global intellectual impairment and 15 matched typically developing children, on both regulation of play activities and communication development. Regulation of play was very disordered in children with autism, with breaking off, dissociation and instability of actions. However, in directed play their actions were more structured and corresponded to a better developmental level. In addition, dysregulation was associated with delayed, heterogeneous development of communication skills. The results of this study are in line with our hypotheses and emphasize the role of symbolic play in differential diagnosis and the value of therapies based on regulation processes and symbolic play.

A classroom-based program for young children 3-5 years of age exhibiting problems with social-communication and social relationships. Our Classroom uses developmentally appropriate intervention and follows the SCERTS Model

The Earliest Indicators of Autism Spectrum Disorders; The Problem: Need for Earlier Identification; FIRST WORDS Project: Early Identification Model

The present study examined spontaneous symbolic play, declarative joint attention, social referencing and imitation of symbolic play in 3- to 6-year-old children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n= 20) during interaction with their mothers. Compared to a control group (n= 20) matched on age and IQ, the children with ASD initiated less joint attention with their mothers when confronted with a pleasant event and they showed a tendency to play less symbolically and more non-functionally. Contrary to expectations, children with ASD showed no social referencing or imitation deficits. Interestingly, two clusters of intercorrelating behaviours were found in the ASD group: one suggesting symbolic or metarepresentational abilities, the other comprising interpersonal behaviours. The findings support the hypothesis that early social communicative abilities may follow a different developmental pathway in ASD, and stress the importance of a contextual factor, namely the presence of the mother.

The emergence of phonological awareness was examined in a longitudinal study. Two issues were of particular interest: (1) the relationship between phonological awareness and early language development, and (2) the relationship between theory of mind and phonological awareness. Of interest was whether early language ability at 2 years was related to phonological awareness (e.g., rhyming) at 4 years. Overall, children’s early language ability at 2 years predicted their phonological awareness at 4 years. Also of interest was the relationship between theory of mind understanding and phonological awareness. At 4 years measures of theory of mind were related to phonological awareness. Possible explanations of the link between language, theory of mind and phonological awareness are discussed.

This experiment compared the effect of computerized visual feedback (computer assisted instruction) with traditional play interaction (personal instruction) in promoting vocal imitation in children with autism. Ten non-verbal children with autism participated in ten sessions. Each session was composed of four sections: a parent and a trainer interacted with the child on the computer or using play interactions. The study was conducted as a simultaneous treatment design and the sequence of experimental conditions was randomized across sessions. Participants showed significantly greater vocal imitations in the computer assisted instruction condition, compared with the personal instruction condition. This trend was present in nine out of ten children. Vocal imitations increased across the sessions, with greater increments in the computer assisted instruction condition. These effects were consistent across both parent and trainer.

Psychosocial aspects of a child's environment proved to be associated with specific language and learning abilities.

A delay in speech development may be a symptom of many disorders, including mental retardation, hearing loss, an expressive language disorder, psychosocial deprivation, autism, elective mutism, receptive aphasia and cerebral palsy.

Our main aim was to increase the children's pragmatic awareness and to a certain extent, with supporting strategies and materials, this has been achieved.

Presence of pragmatic difficulties in a child with communication problems should prompt the clinician to evaluate autistic symptomatology, but it is dangerous to assume that all children with pragmatic difficulties have autism or PDDNOS.

How do children learn so much about language in so little time? Adult-like knowledge of language requires many complex skills, and it's not at all obvious how we acquire them.

A model early identification and intervention program based in the Department of Communication Disorders at Florida State University.

If we read autistic language with the presumption that the person saying a seemingly non-sensical phrase such as "bedtime orange" is communicating his message; if we take on the responsibility of interpreting flavor tubes and clouds in the sky, we might be able to understand something of what an autistic person, with minimal language and not (or not yet) able to communicate more extensively through typing and writing, is telling us. And reading autistic language as we read poetry, with attention to its tropes and to the music of language--to its meter and rhythm--can offer some clues for interpretation and, most of all, for mutual understanding.

Children with autism and children with developmental delays were less likely than typical children to identify the causes of characters' internal states. Rather, they tended simply to label emotions and explain actions.

I suggest that words are simply less lateralised in those genetically predisposed to suffer from schizophrenic symptoms.

Results indicate that challenging behaviors with different behavioral outcomes can be replaced with functionally equivalent communication.

The present study provided valuable information on those subject characteristics and stimulus conditions associated with deficits in nonverbally prompted and generalized language use.

The small group setting provides opportunities to use more naturalistic activities focusing on specific aspects of language development, as well as the development of conversational and peer interaction skills.

Need for Earlier Identification; Using Prelinguistic Predictors; Findings on Our First 1,000 Children; How Early Can We Identify Children with Communication Disorders? Early Intervention Model for Very Young Children; Directions for Future Research

In the evaluation and management of children who are slow to speak, we strongly recommend a good account of the child's medical history, development, and performance, as well as a careful analysis of the child's cognitive strengths and weaknesses with a validated screening test of cognitive function.

Our aim should not be to make the child understand several words, but how his\her understanding of the language of their world helps them to learn, develop more skills and increase more appropriate behaviour.

There are subtle aspects about how we verbally interact with persons with disabilities that sometimes make a great difference in their ability to respond.

Human language provides an opportunity to study the interface between systems that control the acquisition of complex behavioral repertoires in natural social settings.

Need for Earlier Identification; Using Prelinguistic Predictors; Findings on Our First 2,000 Children; How Early Can We Identify Children with Communication Disorders? Early Intervention Model for Very Young Children; Future Directions

For verbal children with autism, the language intervention programs' focus should be increasing the child's knowledge and understanding of social communication skills.

Developmental verbal dyspraxia is a motor-speech programming disorder resulting in difficulty coordinating an sequencing the oral-motor movements necessary to produce and combine speech sounds.

Presents an overview of a basic process and will address some of the primary issues.

You can learn how to observe your students to discover their strengths and weaknesses, translate body language, unravel the ways they process language, appreciate indications of humor, and interpret different kinds of behavior and its intent

Persons with autism can see out, but we cannot see in; and language as a medium for our mutual understanding is lacking or absent. Autism remains mysterious because social and language deficits are at its core and because no two cases are alike.

A lot of people are uneasy and unsure of the proper etiquette when talking to someone who doesn't use traditional real-time speech to communicate. Most non-traditional communicators go out of their way to overlook most transgressions of etiquette, but it can be a sign of tremendous respect to modify your own communication style to help both you and the non-traditional communicator better express your thoughts. Below, a list of common tips is presented. However, all non-traditional communicators have their own preferences, some of which may differ from this list. For people you spend significant time with, it's always best to ask them personally what you could do to help the communication process. A simple, "Is there anything I could do differently while talking to you, to make it easier for both of us to communicate?" can go a long way! After all, more important then any of the suggestions below is your respect for the other person.

The aim of the research is to examine how far and in what ways individuals with autism engage with other people in three communicative settings: firstly, when they are talking with someone else in a semi-structured interview focused on themselves; secondly, when they are invited to transmit a message through imitating and then being imitated by someone else; and thirdly, when they respond to questions that are designed to elicit the personal pronouns ‘you’ and ‘we’.

The classic picture of an autistic individual includes an impoverished ability to interpret or express emotion. The prosody of spoken language in autistic children is thought to lack emotional content. In this study, the verbal intonation of children with autism was examined and compared to that of children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) and normal controls (ctrl). Utterances elicited by repetition and by spontaneous story completion were analyzed by quantifying phonetic features (pitch, amplitude, and length) and comparing them to subjective ratings of produced emotion (happy, sad or angry). Since the most consistent phonetic correlate of these emotional targets has been demonstrated to be pitch range, speakers with autistic spectrum disorders were expected to have decreased pitch range; however in the repetition task, autistic subjects actually had a larger pitch range than the other groups. Other measures of intonation including amplitude, duration, and location of pitch peak revealed defects that are more complex than predicted. In spontaneous speech, autistic subjects performed more poorly on both phonetic targets and subjective ratings than ctrls, and AS subjects fell between autistics and normals.

There are certainly many different ways to speak about autism. The aspect which I have chosen to speak of today is that of speech and representation. Autistic persons speak in a very special way and some of them don't speak at all. I will try to relate this phenomenon of autistic speech (which I will have to describe more closely) to a very general thesis (which I will have to justify): that there is a relationship between language and violence. This thesis stems from psychoanalytic theory and it also occupies an important place in Jacques Derrida's texts. I'll start with a short explanation of the reason why it is possible to affirm the existence of such a relationship. To avoid misunderstanding, let me say right now that the choice to discuss speech does not mean that I consider autism as a simple problem of language.

Clearly, improvement on low- and non-verbal tests of ToM will increase our understanding of the process by which this uniquely human ability develops. Recent research has demonstrated that there are clear precursors throughout infancy to full-blown theory of mind. These milestones are presumably achieved with minimal linguistic competence.

The diagnostic link between lack of speech (in the absence of deafness or obvious structural impairment) and mental retardation depends on the premise that behaviour is in general an accurate reflection of internal mental processes, and that nothing is inhibiting the overt production of communication and "masking" more sophisticated language. This premise is not always valid, and the methods for determining whether it is valid may not be the ones now practised in the field of mental retardation psychology. This target article reviews several cases in which people with deafness, physical handicap, and learning disabilities were reclassified out of the category of mental retardation. The recent debate over facilitated communication" suggests that the burden of proof may lie with those who hold that the actual expressive communication of people diagnosed as mentally retarded does adequately represent their internal language.

Awareness of basic child language development, delay, and deviance is crucial for the practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist, who must diagnose and refer relevant cases for treatment and remediation. (JAACAP)

"When you have no voice, you need an ally," says Gernsbacher. "You also need a world that accepts the communication you can offer, even if it's as unusual as taking an adult by the hand to show what you need or want."

Delayed pragmatic skills need to be individually assessed and addressed. Various cues can be used to develop each skill. Repetition and consistency is the key to obtaining social language goals.

For children with mild autism, the language disorder may present as difficulty with higher level language skills, such as understanding idioms, humor or decreased social skills.

Here we review results suggesting that language and gesture are 'close family', then turn to evidence that raises questions about how real those 'family resemblances' are, summarizing dissociations from our studies of several different child populations.

The underlying principles in teaching hyperlexic children social skills are using strengths of reading and memorization to help them support their weaker areas, in this case, knowing what to say.

LocuTour CDs are designed to meet the needs of speech pathologists, teachers, and parents. They can be used by children and adults at various skill levels. Most exercises have beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels.

There are suggestive similarities between the problems faced by our students and those of native speakers with Asperger's syndrome. The remedial strategies for Asperger's offer some insights for second-language learning and teaching... I suggest that second-language mindblindness afflicts many learners. The problem is not knowing what is in the mind of the other person, and not being able to negotiate a meeting of minds. It is as though one were playing tennis with an invisible opponent. You see the ball when it comes, but you have no way of knowing how the opponent feels or what he is trying to do. Learners can learn a great many of the words and patterns of a second language without having confidence to use the words in actual interpersonal situations.

In this paper, I provided some conceptual motivation and a set of suggestive data to support the hypothesis that the acquisition of certain classes of linguistic items (epistemic modals and evidentials) presupposes advancements in ToM. Furthermore, I argued that, so far, there is little evidence for linguistic determinism in ToM development, although a variety of hypotheses about the relation between language development and ToM development are worth exploring further.

As a group, children with ASD differed from controls by: (a) demonstrating a preference for the non-speech analog signals, and (b) failing to show a significant MMN in response to a syllable change. When ASD children were divided into subgroups based on auditory preference, and the ERP data reanalyzed, ASD children who preferred non-speech still failed to show an MMN, whereas ASD children who preferred motherese did not differ from the controls.

Repetitive questions may serve a variety of functions for the person with ASD. What is confusing is that the same question may serve different functions at different times thereby requiring different strategies.

Is it autistics who are “at a loss” because they can’t speak, can’t speak yet, or can’t speak the way other people expect them to, or is it neurotypicals who are "at a loss" because they rely so heavily upon words for communication? While demanding that their kids "use their words" all the time, are they missing other nonverbal cues and gestures that could be even more meaningful and that maybe don’t even have words?

Nothing about me with out me: We want to be at the table where decisions are made on policy and practice that impacts our life and ability to receive services, funding and supports

The communicative capabilities of people with autism are impaired and limited in significant ways. The problems are characterized by a lack of intentionality and symbol formation, which indicates that the deviant development of communication in autism is associated with a specific cognitive style. The central coherence theory can offer insight into the specific communication problems of people with autism, since a weaker drive for central coherence leads to problems in sense-making and, consequently, in communication. In the case of the comorbidity of autism and learning disability, the communication problems are aggravated. The crucial point is the determination of the level of sense-making, taking this comorbidity into account. Assessment and intervention have to be tuned to individual needs, in order to increase the communicative competence of people with autism and learning disability.

Neither meaning nor communication involve the representation of mental states essentially. Correspondingly, agents who are competent with regards language use and communication need not possess metacognitive abilities.

spontaneous communication of 18 children with autism and minimal or no speech was significantly Spontaneous communication of 18 children with autism and minimal or no speech was significantly affected by a number of social and environmental factors.

Analyses of brain structure in genetic speech and language disorders provide an opportunity to identify neurobiological phenotypes and further elucidate the neural bases of language and its development. Here we report such investigations in a large family, known as the KE family, half the members of which are affected by a severe disorder of speech and language, which is transmitted as an autosomal-dominant monogenic trait. The structural brain abnormalities associated with this disorder were investigated using two morphometric methods of MRI analysis. A voxel-based morphometric method was used to compare the amounts of grey matter in the brains of three groups of subjects: the affected members of the KE family, the unaffected members and a group of age-matched controls. This method revealed a number of mainly motor- and speech-related brain regions in which the affected family members had significantly different amounts of grey matter compared with the unaffected and control groups, who did not differ from each other. Several of these regions were abnormal bilaterally, including the caudate nucleus, which was of particular interest because this structure was also found to show functional abnormality in a related PET study. We performed a more detailed volumetric analysis of this structure. The results confirmed that the volume of this nucleus was reduced bilaterally in the affected family members compared with both the unaffected members and the group of age-matched controls. This reduction in volume was most evident in the superior portion of the nucleus. The volume of the caudate nucleus was significantly correlated with the performance of affected family members on a test of oral praxis, a test of non-word repetition and the coding subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale. These results thus provide further evidence of a relationship between the abnormal development of this nucleus and the impairments in oromotor control and articulation reported in the KE family.

A useful technique for learning names that does not require effortful or novel mnemonic techniques and that can be adopted almost anywhere that a new group of moderate size would benefit from getting to know the names of other members.

This article examines the discourse competence of high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) to participate in narrative introduction sequences with family members. The analysis illuminates the children’s own efforts to launch narratives, as well as their ability to build upon the contributions of others. Ethnographic, discourse analytic methodology is integrated with the theory of discourse organization and the weak central coherence account of autism. Introductions of both personal experience narratives as well as fictional narratives (from television programs, computer games and other media) are examined. The children were especially competent in the use of stable introductory practices when launching fictional narratives, pre-organized by the media of expression. Their challenge was not in the introduction, but in the narrative co-telling, which often was not globally organized over an extended course of propositions. The heterogeneity of the ASD children’s discourse competence and its implications for discourse analysis are discussed.

Much of the recent emphasis on prosody (the melody and rhythm of speech) and its disorders (dysprosody) has been on cognitive-affective functions attributed to cortical areas of the right cerebral hemisphere, with little further behavioral or neuroanatomical specification. This focus is inappropriately narrow both from the perspectives of neuropathogenesis and neurobehavioral phenomenology, and it is based on a limited view of prosody. Current models of brain organization for prosody propose lateralized representation based on functional (affective vs. linguistic) or featural (timing vs. pitch) properties of prosodic material. However, a role for subcortical structures in prosody is being increasingly described, and prosodic functions are now known to span a broad range in communication. In this article we describe normal prosody and present an overview of neurobehavioral disorders associated with acquired adult dysprosody. From these considerations we propose a neurobehavior-based approach to a more effective study of prosodic disturbance, and eventually, to better insight into normal prosody.

Many programs designed for children with autism recommend exercises that focus on auditory listening skills utilizing environmental sounds. Nouns and Sounds provides the opportunity to develop essential skills in a highly motivating environment.

Does autism involve a d