Lexical composition in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)*. Issue 1 (5th December 2012)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: RESCORLA, LESLIE; SAFYER, PAIGE
• Editors: Bavin, Edith L.; Naigles, Letitia R.
• Is Part Of: Journal of child language. Volume 40:Issue 1(2013)
• Page Start: 47
• Page End: 68
• Publication Date: 2012-12-05
• Subjects: Children -- Language -- Periodicals; 401.9305
• DOI: 10.1017/S0305000912000232
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-0009

Abstract

ABSTRACT: For sixty-seven children with ASD (age 1;6 to 5;11), mean Total Vocabulary score on the Language Development Survey (LDS) was 65·3 words; twenty-two children had no reported words; and twenty-one children had 1–49 words. When matched for vocabulary size, children with ASD and children in the LDS normative sample did not differ in semantic category or word-class scores. Q correlations were large when percentage use scores for the ASD sample were compared with those for samples of typically developing children as well as children with vocabularies <50 words. The 57 words with the highest percentage use scores for the ASD children were primarily nouns, represented a variety of semantic categories, and overlapped substantially with the words having highest percentage use scores in samples of typically developing children as well as children with lexicons of <50 words. Results indicated that the children with ASD were acquiring essentially the same words as typically developing children, suggesting delayed but not deviant lexical composition.