The options of the assessment of pragmatic communication level in children with autism spectrum disorder II. (Discussion of the main research outcomes from the percective of speech - language therapist)

Abstract

The article describes the main findings of the research focused on the possibility of evaluating the pragmatic level of communication in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) from the point of view of speech-language therapist based on a comparison with groups of children with specific language impairment, a mild intellectual disability and typical children. We refer to the originally developed evaluation tool that can be used not only in speech-language therapy practice, and we compare the resulting findings with previously published pre-research. The findings show that some perceptual deficits at the level of the pragmatic language level, especially the recognition of the proxemics, as well as the surprising differences between performances of children with autism spectrum disorders compared to others, are confirmed. Given the variability and the identified pitfalls of evaluating socio-pragmatic language information, we recommend caution in evaluating and interpreting the pragmatic language level assessment not only in children with PAS.