Derick Stace-Naughton with Shaun Schweigert and Dr. Morton Ann Gernsbacher

UW-Madison Department of Psychology

Current knowledge concerning language development suggests that the ability to comprehend language precedes the ability to express oneself. The relative progression of language skills in children with autism is of particular interest given the language deficits characteristic of the autism spectrum. A group comprised of both autistic and typically developing children was analyzed using measures of expressive language, receptive vocabulary, and receptive grammar. The results were compared to a standardized value representing the typical relationship between comprehension and expression. We compared a group made up of both autistic and typically developing children to the normative data from a typically developing population. The correlation between receptive vocabulary and expressive language was .88 for both the autistic and the typically developing groups, while the correlation between receptive grammar and expressive language was .76 for the typically developing group.