Sentence Development in Young Speakers with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Background: Language form in high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has been held to be a relative strength (Tager-Flusberg, 1995). Some recent studies suggest there may a subset of speakers with ASD who show specific grammatical deficits (Tager-Flusberg & Joseph, 2003), or more generalized weaknesses in grammatical function (Eigsti et al.,2007).

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to compare syntactical features in spontaneous language samples of children with ASD and children with typical development (TD), matched on verbal IQ. 

Methods: Participants (ages 4-7) underwent extensive cognitive, behavioral, and language testing to establish research diagnoses of autism   Language samples were derived from the first 50 utterances spoken during administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Language samples were transcribed and analyzed, using the SALT program (Miller & Chapman, 2008).

Results: Preliminary results indicate decreased sentence complexity among children with ASD compared to the TD group.  Children with ASD used fewer conjunctions, and scored a full Brown’s Stage lower than typical peers, based on MLU. Interestingly, the group with ASD made significantly fewer grammatical errors than peers with TD.

Conclusions: Despite relative sparing of language skills as evidenced by standardized testing, children with ASD show lower levels of overall grammatical development; specifically, reduced use of complex sentences, as indexed by decreased frequency of conjunction use, when compared to peers with typical development. Findings suggest young speakers with ASD produce simple, well-formed sentences, making few errors but showing little sentence elaboration.  These findings have implications for understanding the language skills of children with ASD in the elementary years, suggesting that although basic grammatical rules are learned, speakers with ASD fail to move forward from these simple expressions to produce the richer, denser, more elaborated sentences that support academic and social growth.