LANGUAGE AND PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS IN SCHOOL-AGE-CHILDREN ON THE AUTISMSPECTRUM

This study examined group differences in language and pragmatic functi ons across sex-, age- and IQ-matched samples of Asperger syndrome (N=2 2), high-functioning autism (N=11) deficits in attention, motor contro l and perception (DAMP) (N=11), and speech and language disorder (SLD) (N=11) groups. The purpose was to explore possible differentiating fe atures in the fields of vocabulary, comprehension and pragmatics and i n addition, to determine whether Asperger syndrome could be reliably s eparated from high-functioning autism on these variables. The findings suggest that Asperger syndrome may be associated with higher full-sca le and verbal IQ than high-functioning autism; Asperger syndrome may n ot be associated with better pragmatic skills (as defined in this cont ext) than high-functioning autism; language comprehension may not clea rly separate Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism once the ef fects of very low le are partialled out; both DAMP and SLD can be dist inctly separated from Asperger syndrome and autism.