Questões funcionais e sócio-cognitivas no desenvolvimento da linguagem em crianças normais e autistas

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Amato, CAH. Functional and socio-cognitive issues in language development of normal and autistic children [thesis]. Sao Paulo: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciencias Humanas, Universidade de Sao Paulo; 2006. 165p. . Language and communication disorders have always been considered within autistic spectrum disorders. Nowadays many studies report the speech and language therapist’s work with this population. This research provides a contribution to the better understanding of language and social cognitive developmental processes in the preceding and early stages of verbalization in normal developing and autistic children. The theoretical basis aims to support this study and to provide a sample of the recent discussions about the issue. The objective of the research is to determine the correlations between the functional communicative profile and the social-cognitive performance of children with normal development between zero and 36 months of age and autistic children. The methodology proposed involves the systematic follow up of six children interacting with their mothers through recordings sessions conducted in their homes, with three months interval of three children between the first and the 15 month (3 subjects) and between the 18 and the 36 months (3 subjects). To further improve the generalization possibilities of the data obtained with this small group the same data was obtained from other 39 subjects interaction with their mothers, 3 of each age (respectively 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33 and 36 months). The data about the development of communicative language profile and social cognitive performance provided parameters from which investigate the communicative profile and the social cognitive development of autistic children (10 verbal and 10 non-verbal). Results show that normal and autistic children presented different correlations between language and social-cognitive abilities. In both groups it was possible to observe that the functional communication profile and the social-cognitive performance are associated and that the development of one domain in necessarily linked to the development of the other. The present research confirmed that communicative intent is present since birth and that there is a quantitative and a qualitative improvement of communicative abilities along with the improvement of social-cognitive abilities. In verbal and non-verbal autistic children the characterization of the functional communicative profile and the socialcognitive performance conducted in this study confirmed these children’s inabilities In the three domains and how these inabilities determine their general performance. Contrary to normal developing children the autistic children many times present dissociation between the functional communicative profile and the social-cognitive performance due specific characteristics of the disorder. Key-words: language development, pre-verbal communication, social-cognitive development, autistic disorders.