Autism and Interactional Aspects of Dialogue

Little research has been done to explore differences in the interactional aspects of dialogue between children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and those with typical development (TD). Quantifying the differences could aid in diagnosing ASD, understanding its nature, and better understanding the mechanisms of dialogue processing. In this paper, we report on a study of dialogues with children with ASD and TD. We find that the two groups differ substantially in how long they pause before speaking, and their use of fillers, acknowledgments, and discourse markers.