Assessing the Minimally Verbal School‐Aged Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of assessing communication, language, and associated cognitive and behavioral abilities of minimally verbal children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), presenting a summary of a year-long series of meetings held by a group of experts in the field of ASD and NIH staff. In this paper, our goals were to first define the population and then present general guidelines for optimizing assessment sessions for this challenging population. We then summarize the available measures that can be used across a variety of behavioral domains that are most directly relevant to developing language skills, including: oral motor skills, vocal repertoire, receptive and expressive language, imitation, intentional communication, play, social behavior, repetitive and sensory behaviors, special interests, atypical behavior and nonverbal cognition. We conclude with a discussion of some of the limitations in the available measures and highlight recommendations for future research in this area.

Comparing methods for assessing receptive language skills in minimally verbal children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders

“…While it has been difficult to define this population, now referred to as "minimally verbal," it is generally agreed that the term covers school-aged children and older who have little to no spoken language that is used spontaneously for communication. Formal definitions of this group focus on expressive language only (Kasari et al, 2013). Some may be completely nonverbal with no spoken words; others may have a very limited vocabulary of Autism up to a few dozen words or fixed phrases that are used communicatively.…”

“…Some may have relatively good comprehension that goes beyond single words; other seem not to understand more than a very limited number of words or phrases (Rapin et al, 2009). One major roadblock to investigations of receptive language skills in this population is the paucity of valid assessment tools (Kasari et al, 2013). Standardized tests may be especially challenging for a variety of reasons.…”

“…Any or all of these issues could affect the validity and reliability of the standardized test measure. Furthermore, given the need to establish a basal level of performance and the presence of floor effects for standard scores on most tests, often a minimally verbal individual is found to be untestable on even the most common standardized language tests (Kasari et al, 2013).…”

Issues in Identification and Assessment of Children with Autism and a Proposed Resource Toolkit for Speech-Language Pathologists

“…Another well-known difficulty is the marked heterogeneity in cognitive, communication, and linguistic abilities of children with ASD [22][23][24][25][26]. Language skills span the entire continuum from no speech or functional speech, to mastery levels of comprehension, production, and literacy, while autism severity ranges from very severe to very mild.…”

Visualizing Syllables: Real-Time Computerized Feedback Within a Speech–Language Intervention

“…Given the explicit intent of facilitating multisyllabic productions, we prioritized recruitment of 18 children with speech-language impairments at the single-word stage of development (Kasari et al 2013; Tager-Flusberg et al Parent education ranged from 13 to 21 years of formal education, with an overall mean of 17 years, the equivalent of a bachelor's degree. Of the 18 participants, 12 were male, and 15 were identified by their parents as White/ Caucasian (1 as African American/Caucasian, 1 as Hispanic/Caucasian, and 1 as Hispanic/Latino).…”