Objective: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental impairment. To better understand the role of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in different countries in supporting children with ASD, the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) Child Language Committee developed a survey for SLPs working with children or adolescents with ASD. Method and Participants: The survey comprised 58 questions about background information of respondents, characteristics of children with ASD, and the role of SLPs in diagnosis, assessment, and intervention practices. The survey was available in English, French, Russian, and Portuguese, and distributed online. Results: This paper provides a descriptive summary of the main findings from the quantitative data from the 1,114 SLPs (representing 35 countries) who were supporting children with ASD. Most of the respondents (91%) were experienced in working with children with ASD, and the majority (75%) worked in schools or early childhood settings. SLPs reported that the children’s typical age at diagnosis of ASD on their caseload was 3–4 years, completed mostly by a professional team. Conclusions: The results support positive global trends for SLPs using effective practices in assessment and intervention for children with ASD. Two areas where SLPs may need further support are involving parents in assessment practices, and supporting literacy development in children with ASD.

The aim of this paper is to provide information regarding diversity in speech and language profiles of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and try to classify these profiles according to the combination of the communication difficulties. Research findings confirm the existence of heterogeneity of communication challenges in ASD across the lifespan. A lot of children with ASD experience communication challenges and strengths across all language sub-systems including pragmatics, grammar, semantics, syntax, phonology, and morphology in both oral and written language, while some children with autism demonstrate exceptional language abilities incl. linguistic creativity. Communication issues vary on a continuum of severity so that some children may be verbal, whereas others remain non-verbal or minimally-verbal. The diversity of profiles in speech and language development stem from either the presence of comorbid factors, as a core symptom of autistic behavior without comorbidity or both, with the development of complex clinical symptoms. Difficulties with the semantic aspect of language affect the individual’s skills in abstract thinking, multiple meanings of words, concept categorization, and so on. Finally, the coexistence of ASD with other communication difficulties such as a Language Disorder, Apraxia of Speech, Speech Sound Disorders or/and other neurodevelopmental disorders raises the need for examining more carefully the emergence of new clinical profiles and clinical markers useful in performing differential diagnosis and different intervention.

PURPOSE: To extend previous research in the development of idiom comprehension by investigating this ability in children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) or with High Functioning Autism (HFA). METHODS: Three groups participated in the study. The first group consisted of 27 children with AS/HFA (mean age 11.3 years) and the other two consisted of typically developing children and adults, respectively. The Comprehension Test of Idiomatic Phrases (CTIP) was administered to all participants. RESULTS: Children with AS/HFA had lower performance compared to the other two groups. No difference was found in the performance between the two typically developing groups. Also, there was no significant correlation between the IQ and the performance for the children with AS/HFA, while positive correlations were revealed between performance and age for the two groups of children. CONCLUSION: The results provide further evidence that children with AS/HFA have difficulties in understanding idioms and they confirm their tendency to make literal interpretations. These impairments are irrelevant to their intelligence and they affect their communication with others. The understanding of these difficulties is important in order to find ways to limit the confusion and the misinterpretations which are observed during the communicative acts with this clinic group.

Semantic or vocabulary errors were measured among children with autism and mild learning disability and children with mild learning disability only (six children of 7.9-8.7 years in each group), testing the hypothesis that these were common in both groups. Different variables were investigated such as breadth of vocabulary and number of vocabulary errors, type of paraphasias, and mechanisms used to name the meanings that children were not aware of or could not recall, and the particular meanings that were difficult for each group. Preliminary findings showed that vocabulary errors were similar in both groups, except under-extension, which was not used by the autism group. Children with autism tended to use all mechanisms in order to name something they did not know and to focus on parts of the object in order to name it, while unknown words were similar in both groups.

Background/Aims: One of psychology's challenges is to develop and evaluate sensitive tests in the area of social cognition. Yet, there are few available scales that can measure mild deficits in social understanding, especially for typically developing (TD) populations. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (children's version) was translated and adapted for use in the Greek language [RMET-G (child)]. The aim of this study was to examine in the Greek language the qualitative and quantitative differences between TD youngsters and those with high-functioning autism (HFA), as well as the difference between TD children and TD adults. Methods: An interview-based psychometric study was conducted. Participants completed the RMET-G (child), constituting 3 groups: TD children older than 8 years, children with HFA and TD adults. Results: 103 participants completed the study. The results demonstrated that TD adults scored slightly higher than TD children, and children with HFA scored lower than their TD peers. Children with HFA, however, were able to recognize many of the pictures shown in the test. Conclusion: The results of this study, which were the first to be conducted in the Greek language, confirm findings of other studies in the literature conducted with the RMET in the English language.