STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN CONVERSATIONS WITH A WOMAN WHO HAS AUTISM

The experience of conversing with a person who has autism is often des cribed as unsatisfactory. This article offers some suggestions as to w hy that might be. Conversation between an adult diagnosed as autistic and a researcher was transcribed and analyzed using the methodology of Conversation Analysis. The analysis highlights differences in convers ational style between the two participants based on features such as t opic movement, topic maintenance, repairs, interference from earlier s tructures and common collocations, overlaps, latching, and pauses. It is suggested that many of the features of the subject's talk which res ult in an overly repetitive style may be cognitively motivated. (C) 19 98 by Elsevier Science Inc.