Comparing the Pragmatic Speech Profiles of Minimally Verbal and Verbally Fluent Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Chelsea La Valle, Daniela Plesa-Skwerer, Helen Tager-Flusberg
PMID 32096124WHAT IT FOUND
Minimally verbal individuals with autism use fewer speech functions than fluent peers, relying heavily on agreement and requests.
They rarely comment, but still show intent to connect. Therapy should target expanding functions beyond requesting to include commenting.
Key findings
01Minimally verbal individuals with ASD used significantly fewer different pragmatic functions than verbally fluent individuals, with an average of 3.58 functions compared to 5.90.
02The most frequent function for minimally verbal individuals was agreement or acknowledgement, while commenting was the most frequent function for verbally fluent individuals.
03Only 4% of non-echolalic speech from minimally verbal individuals consisted of comments, compared to 58% for verbally fluent individuals.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Speech was assessed only during a semi-structured ADOS session with an unfamiliar examiner, which may not reflect naturalistic communication. Non-verbal communication (gestures, facial expressions) was not analyzed, so the full pragmatic picture is incomplete. The groups differed in non-verbal IQ and receptive vocabulary, making it difficult to isolate whether pragmatic differences are due to speech ability or cognitive/language comprehension factors. The study used a 'speech act' approach that analyzed individual utterances without considering the interactive flow or examiner's role in detail.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that minimally verbal individuals lack social intent because they comment rarely. Their high rate of turn-taking and agreement responses shows they are engaging with partners. The difference in commenting may reflect speech production limits or examiner scaffolding during the ADOS, not a lack of desire to share information.