Investigation of Language and Communication Characteristics in Autism

Objective: Impairments in language are among the core features of autism. However, findings on the language deficits of autistic children have been contradictory. Furthermore less is known about the language profiles of Turkish speaking children with autism. The aim of the present study was to investigate language characteristics of children with autism and relationship between their receptive and expressive language skills in comparison to children with mental retardation. Method: The participants comprised 43 children with autism, and 45 children with mental retardation between ages 4-15 who attended special education schools. Data was collected by Sample of Verbal Behavior and Educational Assessment subtests of ASIEP-II. Results: The results showed that there were significant differences between frequencies of noncommunicative, unintelligible words and babbling vocalizations among the two groups. Autism group had significantly more uncommunicative, unintelligible and babbling utterances than the comparison group. On the other hand mental retardated group used more words than the autism group. It was found that receptive language abilities were better than expressive language abilities for both groups. Relationship between receptive and expressive language abilities of the autism group was similar to the control group. Discussion: The results support that children with autism show impairments of language abilities. Further research is recommended to replicate and extend these findings.