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Communication and Language Characteristics of ASD

Claire Moehring

EDUU-575

Ms. Diane Conti

Spring 2022: Week 4

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The communication and language characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder are

currently seen as part of a broad spectrum. It was English psychiatrist and parent of a child with

severe autism, Lorna Wing, who provided the field of psychiatry with the term “autism

spectrum.” In the 1980’s she started thinking about autism as a continuum, but after writing

about “the autistic continuum” she decided the term didn’t do justice to the complexity of being

autistic. Autism was not a single straight line running from mild to severe. Instead, it was a

complicated and highly variable “autism spectrum.”

Rather than see autism as a collection of closely related autistic traits that created a

single, specific syndrome, she and her research assistant Judith Gould proposed a ”triad of

impairment,” with each of the three aspects being flexible and variable,allowing for countless

combinations and levels of intensity among each. Through her publications, lectures, and books

Wing encouraged researchers and clinicians to be more inclusive and discerning when

interpreting the differences of autism. She argued these differences often didn’t appear in the

tidy, narrowly crafted checklists favored at the time. (Zucker, 2016)

Wing’s efforts were as much personal and professional. After her daughter Susie was

diagnosed with autism in the 1950s, a time when a diagnosis of autism often meant

institutionalization for the child and psychoanalysis for the mother, Wing decided to focus her

professional research and practice exclusively on child psychiatry. She was one of the first to

consider autism dimensionally as a significant difference that affected people of all ages,

backgrounds, genders, and abilities. (Happe, 2014)

Those differences occur within the “triad of impairments,” which include social

emotional reciprocity, developing lasting relationships, and non-verbal communication. (CDC,

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2022) Communication and language impact all three. A neurotypical child uses language for

social reasons to start conversations and interactions, while a child on the spectrum may typically

use words to regulate their environment through demands, protests, and direct observation. How

language develops for an individual on the spectrum depends on a variety of factors just as with

neurotypical peers, factors such as IQ, comprehension, and attention skills. (Mody, 2013)

An individual with severe autism, sometimes still referred to as “classic autism,” may

never develop verbal language; that person may never speak or be able to engage the wide range

of facial and bodily gestures humans rely on to effectively convey information and receive it.

Among people on the spectrum who are nonverbal, between 20 to 30 percent have a delay in

spoken language and may require alternative augmentative communication such as sign

language,pictures, or a voice output device. (Pratt, 2014)

Whereas another individual toward the opposite end of the spectrum may be identified as

hyperlexic as a child (although this is rare and not necessarily an indication that a child is on the

spectrum) and also quickly develop reading comprehension around topics of interest. (Solazzo,

2021) They may be able to discuss in detail and with a maturity that seems beyond their years

these topics of interest and branch out into other topics as well. That same child may over time

learn to read gestures through observation and study so that most outside observers would not

notice a delay or deficit in how that individual processes social interactions.

Both diagnoses of ASD but their differences in social interaction and social

communication; insistence on sameness; restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior; fixated,

limited interests; and response to sensory input vary greatly largely due genetics and early

developmental environment.
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Works Cited

Happe, F. Baron-Cohen, S. (2014, July 15) Remembering Lorna Wing (1928-2014). Spectrum
News.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/remembering-lorna-wing-1928-2014/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d.) Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autism
Spectrum Disorder. Retrieved April 16, 2022, from
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

Mody, M., Belliveau, J. (2013) Speech and Language Impairments in Autism: Insights from
Behavior and Neuroimaging. North American Journal of Medical Science, 5(3):
157–161.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3862077/

Pratt, C., Hopf, R., & Larriba-Quest, K. (2017). Characteristics of individuals with an autism
spectrum disorder (ASD). The Reporter, 21(17). Retrieved from
https://www.iidc.indiana.edu/pages/characteristics.

Solazzo, S. (2021) Measuring the Specific Abilities in Young Children with Autism Spectrum
Disorders: The Example of Early Hyperlexic Traits. Brain Sciences, 11(6), 692.
10.3390/brainsci11060692

Zucker, C. Donvan, J. (2016) In a Different Key: The Story of Autism. Crown Publishers