The Language Environment of Autistic and Dysphasic Children

Abstract

This paper examines the language of mothers of language-impaired children. Ten male children with a receptive language impairment, a nonverbal IQ of at least 70, and no overt signs of neurological disorder or peripheral deafness were chosen for study. The children were divided into two groups according to their total expressive language: a “high” language group which could form phrases and simple sentences and a “low” language group which had only one-word utterances. The language of the mothers of the two groups of children was compared for grammatical complexity (mean sentence length, mean preverb length, percentage of one-word or phrase-only utterances, and percentage of self-repetitions) and for the amount of “teaching devices” (imitations, expansions, corrections, and prompts) and encouragements to speak. It was found that the mothers of the “high” language children had more grammatical complexity, more orientation to the children's speech than the mothers of the “low” language children.