Assessing prosodic and pragmatic ability in children with high-functioning autism

Abstract

Children with high-functioning autism are widely reported to show deficits in both prosodic and pragmatic ability. New procedures for assessing both of these are now available and have been used in a study of 31 children with high-functioning autism and 72 controls. Some of the findings from a review of the literature on prosodic skills in individuals with autism are presented, and it is shown how these skills are addressed in a new prosodic assessment procedure, PEPS-C. A case study of a child with high-functioning autism shows how his prosodic skills can be evaluated on the prosody assessment procedure, and how his skills compare with those of controls. He is also assessed for pragmatic ability. Results of both assessments are considered together to show how, in the case of this child, specific prosodic skill-levels can affect pragmatic ability.

Paper adds to the growing body of evidence that children can acquire phonological systems before they are able to master the phonetic skills needed to convey the contrasts in that system