Social Communication and pragmatic skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder.
Simone Vasconcelos Rocha Hage, Lidiane Yumi Sawasaki, Yvette Hyter and 1 others
PMID 34932641WHAT IT FOUND
Parents rated children with autism as having significantly poorer social communication than children with developmental language disorder.
Teachers showed a similar trend. Both groups scored lower than typically developing peers, but parents and teachers agreed closely on these deficits.
Key findings
01Children with ASD had significantly lower pragmatic communication scores than children with DLD when rated by parents.
02Children with ASD scored significantly lower on social communication measures than children with typical development, as rated by both parents and teachers.
03There was no significant difference in pragmatic scores between children with DLD and children with typical development.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was very small (10 children per diagnostic group), limiting the generalizability of the findings. The study was limited to a single social and cultural group in Brazil. Only 40% of the distributed questionnaires were returned, which may introduce selection bias. The DLD group did not differ significantly from the typical development group on total scores, suggesting the tool may lack sensitivity to the specific pragmatic deficits in DLD unless individual items are examined.
Declared interests
The study was approved by an ethics committee, but no specific funding sources or author conflicts of interest are detailed in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that children with DLD have typical pragmatic skills just because their total scores do not differ significantly from peers. The study found specific deficits in items like spontaneous questioning and being understood, and the small sample size means these null findings should not be interpreted as evidence of no impairment.