Pragmatic Analysis of the Communicative Behavior of an Autistic Child

Abstract

Differential responsiveness by social stimuli was demonstrated in the communicative performance of an 8-year-old autistic boy. The pragmatic behavior of the subject varied with different communicative settings (waiting vs. interaction conditions) as well as with different communicative partners (mother, stranger, clinician). Communicative intentions, relational communication, topic strategies and differential responding to adults to communicative and non-communicative utterances were analyzed. Results indicated that the adults' communicative performance was a function of their relationships with the subject (mother, stranger, clinician) as well as the different experimental conditions (waiting, interacting). The child's communicative behavior showed greater consistency in conditions with the same interlocutor than over comparable experimental settings. Conclusions were drawn on how to facilitate communicative behavior and how to enhance generalization of remedial effects to the subject's natural environment.

A longitudinal study of language acquisition in autistic and down syndrome children

“…Children, including autistic children (cf. Bernard-Opitz, 1982), are more verbal and use more advanced language with someone they know well in a familiar setting.…”

Speech-Language Pathology in the Assessment and Diagnosis within the Autism Spectrum

“…It may suggest that the isolated communicative intent (no adequately addressed) doesn't result in functional efficiency. This brings to attention the issue of the need to take the communicative context into consideration when analyzing pragmatic abilities of individuals with ASD [5,12].…”

Análise das funções comunicativas expressas por terapeutas e pacientes do espectro autístico

“…Studies have shown that individuals of the autistic spectrum present communicative intent (Molini and Fernandes, 2003) and are sensitive to the communicative partner (Bernard-Optiz, 1982). This author studied the interference of different interlocutors in the communication of children with autism.…”

“…In the literature few studies (Bernard-Optiz, 1982;Fernandes, 2000a) focus on the therapistchild rapport although this dyad is always considered potentially important to the prognosis of the child of the autistic spectrum. Fernandes (2000a) studied the functional aspects of the communication of children with autism in the context of language therapy.…”

“…The proportion of requests was 44,8%, comments and performatives were 22.5% and showing off were 18.5%. Requests were also used by the therapists studied by Bernard-Optiz (1982).…”