Assessing Spoken Language Development in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

In this chapter, the author discusses assessment of language development in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). According to evidence-based practice, it is vital to evaluate all aspects of communication in order to determine a specific diagnosis or to direct intervention. While this is true for any child suspected of having a language impairment, it is especially true for children also diagnosed with ASD. Although there are a number of accepted standardized measures to evaluate receptive and expressive language and speech articulation, evaluation of pragmatic abilities is often more complicated. With the incidence of children and young adults with ASD, and social (pragmatic) communication disorders, on the rise in all settings, it is vital to thoughtfully consider best practice related to the thorough assessment of communication abilities for those with ASD, from our youngest learners to adolescents.

Transdiagnostic Profiles of Behaviour and Communication Relate to Academic and Socio-emotional Functioning and Neural White Matter Organisation

Behavioural and language difficulties co-occur in multiple neurodevelopmental conditions. Our understanding of these problems has arguably been slowed by an overreliance on case-control designs, which limit the conclusions we can draw because they fail to capture the overlap across different neurodevelopmental disorders and the heterogeneity within them. In this study, we recruited a large transdiagnostic cohort of children with complex diagnosed and undiagnosed needs (N = 805) to identify distinct subgroups of children with common profiles of behavioural and language strengths and difficulties. We then investigated whether and how these data-driven groupings could be distinguished from a comparison sample (N = 158) on academic, socio-emotional, and neural white matter characteristics. We identified three distinct subgroups of children, each with different levels of difficulties in structural language, pragmatic communication, and hot and cool executive functions. All three subgroups struggled with academic and socio-emotional skills relative to the comparison sample, potentially representing three alternative but related developmental pathways to difficulties in these areas. The children with the weakest language skills had the most widespread difficulties with learning, whereas those with more pronounced difficulties with hot executive skills experienced the most severe difficulties within the socio-emotional domain. Each data-driven subgroup could be distinguished from the comparison sample based on both shared and subgroup-unique patterns of neural white matter organisation. These findings advance our understanding of commonly co-morbid behavioural and language problems and their relationship to behavioural outcomes and neurobiological substrates.

The active role of the parent in children`s with ASD rehabilitation process

oor social-pragmatic communication is one of the frequent symptoms of the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The determining factors of the syncopes which occur on the communication level are the deficits in the receptive and expressive language. The role of communication and language, the intervention of the parent in the process of recovering the child, the training of the parents as well as the early intervention in the Autism Spectrum Disorder are aspects that have benefited from more attention lately. The main objective of this paper is to observe the progress made by the children with ASD, who have benefited from online education and recovery therapy from a therapist. The case study was used, through observing the evaluation reports with the help of the ABLLS-R evaluation tool, applied to five children with ASD. The expected results have taken the form of improved performance on the evaluated subscales and with improved results in the intervention applied by the parent and guided by the therapist. These findings are meant to emphasize the importance of parent involvement in the process of developing language and communication, as well as recovery in the context of ASD.

Prevalence and functional impact of social (pragmatic) communication disorders

Background:To evaluate the utility of the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2) for measuring inclusion and exclusion criteria of Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder (SPCD) and to ascertain prevalence rates and functional impact of SPCD in a community sample.Method:We used parent and teacher responses to the CCC-2 to approximate inclusion (poor social-pragmatic skills) and exclusion (poor structural language skills or autistic symptomatology) criteria for SPCD. We tested the prevalence of SPCD using these criteria in a population-based sample of children (n = 386) aged 5-6 years old. We also investigated the academic and behavioural profiles of children with more broadly-defined limitations in social-pragmatic competence.Results:Regardless of the diagnostic algorithm used, the resulting prevalence rates for SPCD indicated that very few children had isolated social communication difficulties (0-1.3%). However, a larger proportion of children (range: 6.1-10.5%) had social-pragmatic skills outside the expected range alongside structural language difficulties and/or autism spectrum symptoms, and this was associated with a range of adverse academic and behavioural outcomes. Conclusions:A considerable proportion of children in the early years of primary school have social-pragmatic deficits that interfere with social and scholastic activity, however these rarely occur in isolation. Exclusionary criteria articulated by DSM-5 may lead to under-identification of individuals with social-pragmatic deficits that may benefit from tailored support and intervention.

The DSM-5 introduction of the Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder as a new mental disorder: a philosophical review

The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) included the Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder (SPCD) as a new mental disorder characterized by deficits in pragmatic abilities. Although the introduction of SPCD in the psychiatry nosography depended on a variety of reasons—including bridging a nosological gap in the macro-category of Communication Disorders—in the last few years researchers have identified major issues in such revision. For instance, the symptomatology of SPCD is notably close to that of (some forms of) Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This opens up the possibility that individuals with very similar symptoms can be diagnosed differently (with either ASD or SPCD) and receive different clinical treatments and social support. The aim of this paper is to review recent debates on SPCD, particularly as regards its independence from ASD. In the first part, we outline the major aspects of the DSM-5 nosological revision involving ASD and SPCD. In the second part, we focus on the validity and reliability of SPCD. First, we analyze literature on three potential validators of SPCD, i.e., etiology, response to treatment, and measurability. Then, we turn to reliability issues connected with the introduction of the grandfather clause and the use of the concepts of spectrum and threshold in the definition of ASD. In the conclusion, we evaluate whether SPCD could play any role in contemporary psychiatry other than that of an independent mental disorder and discuss the role that non-epistemic factors could play in the delineation of the future psychiatry nosography.

Strategies of Pragmatic Distance Employed in English Writing by Chinese College Students

The situation of English writing by Chinese college students is a matter difficult to handle, with some being good and some bad. The flexible processing of pragmatic distance in English writings between authors and readers to ensure effective pragmatic communication deserves too much thought. The appropriate use of strategies of pragmatic distance employed in English writings has a direct impact on writing performance. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze how to use relevance theory to interpret strategies of pragmatic distance employed in English writings, and to find out whether there is a certain relationship between the strategic use of pragmatic distance and gender, thus providing a reference for the research to improve English writing proficiency of Chinese college students.

Psychometrics of the Pragmatic Rating Scale for School-Age Children With a Range of Linguistic and Social Communication Skills

Purpose Social communication or pragmatic skills are continuously distributed in the general population. Impairment in these skills is associated with two clinical disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and social (pragmatic) communication disorder. Such impairment can impact a child's peer acceptance, school performance, and current and later mental health. Valid, reliable, examiner-rated observational measures of social communication from a semistructured language sample are needed to detect social communication impairment. We evaluated the psychometrics of an examiner-rated measure of social (pragmatic) communication, the Pragmatic Rating Scale–School Age (PRS-SA). Method The analytic sample consisted of 130 children, ages 7–12 years, from five mutually exclusive groups: ASD ( n = 25), language concern (LC; n = 5), ASD + LC ( n = 10), social communication impairment only ( n = 22), and typically developing (TD; n = 68). All children received language and autism assessments. The PRS-SA was rated separately using video-recorded communication samples from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Assessment data were employed to evaluate the psychometrics of the PRS-SA. Analysis of covariance models were used to assess whether the PRS-SA would detect differences in social communication functioning across the five groups. Results The PRS-SA demonstrated strong internal reliability, concurrent validity, and interrater reliability. PRS-SA scores were significantly higher in all groups compared to the TD group and differed significantly in most pairwise comparisons; the ASD + LC group had the highest (more atypical) scores. Conclusions The PRS-SA shows promise as a measure of social communication skills in school-age verbally fluent children with a range of social and language abilities. More research is needed with a larger sample, including a wider age range and geographical diversity, to replicate findings. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.15138240

A contrastive study on thanking in Arabic dialects and English

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics (CCP) is a field of study that focuses on the interaction of people from various cultures. It is to clarify cultural distinctions between languages that acquire meaning through context and sociocultural embedding, resulting in a pragmatic communication failure. This study determines whether the Arabic language, because of dialectical variation, contains more thanking methods than English. Additionally, it aims to investigate the face-threatening strategies used by Arabs and native English speakers. Besides, it aims to determine whether contextual variables affect thanking expressions. The data collection instrument was an open-ended questionnaire in two versions Arabic and English. The results were then analyzed quantitatively using SPSS software version 26.0, following Cheng's classification of thanking. The findings indicate that dialectical diversity is not associated with an increase in thanking strategies that are more prevalent in English. Additionally, religion affects the Arabs speaking, their manner of thanking does not exclude religious expressions, which are their preferred method of expressing their politeness and gratitude. In terms of face-threatening strategies, both native Arabic and English speakers preferred negative politeness to positive politeness, which focuses on minimizing the FTA's particular imposition. Concerning contextual variables such as familiarity and social status, both affect how the thanking speech act is performed. It will be worthwhile to investigate thanking in Arabic and English with a specific factor such as social distance. Additionally, it is beneficial to examine thanking in Arabic dialects regarding civilization's cultural influence and the dialect's proximity to standard Arabic.