SPEECH AND LANGUAGE IN HIGH-FUNCTIONING AUTISTIC INDIVIDUALS

Verbal individuals with autism provide an important opportunity for investigating the qualitative nature of speech and language impairments in autism. In this study, a psychometric analysis of the language performance of 62 high-functioning autistic (HFA; Full Scale IQ and Verbal IQ > 70) participants was compared with that of 50 control participants matched for age, IQ, gender, race, education, and family socioeconomic distribution. Tests were included to compare basic procedural linguistic skills with complex, interpretive linguistic skills. The HFA participants did as well as controls on basic procedural language tests, but significantly less well on tests of complex interpretive language abilities. This profile is consistent with neuropsychological reports of generalized deficits in complex information-processing abilities with preservation of basic skills in the same functional areas.