Narrative abilities in children with Autism Spectrum Conditions

Abstract

This work addresses macrostructural features of narrative of children with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). We analyze indicators of speech planning and use of referential devices. To do this, we compare the narratives of children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC, 𝑛 = 18, range: 7;4-12;6 years old) with typically developing controls (TD, 𝑛 = 19, range: 6;8-12;10 years old). Results show that children with ASC produced less filled pauses and prolongations than controls, which could be related with a lack of speech planning. Also, we predicted an increasing tendency of the use of anaphoric references compared to the use of non-anaphoric and indefinite references as the story unfolds. This tendency resulted to be significant in the TD group, but not in the ASC group, when comparing anaphoric to non-anaphoric references. This shows that children with ASC are less sensitive to ways of connecting utterances with each other in narrative structure.