Abstract
The papers presented by Churchill and Rutter contain a rich amount of data on the “language features” in the behavior of autistic children. From these data the authors have reached several conclusions about what these features are, the causes of their appearance, and some questions about the explanations that have been provided thus far. In this discussion I will summarize what appear to be agreements and disagreements between the two researchers in these areas, and then express my own views. Unlike Churchill and Rutter, I have not done extensive research with autistic children. Therefore, I am relying on observations from the literature about these children and my own work on the language development of normally developing children and children classified as aphasic or dysphasic to reach some tentative conclusions about what may be wrong with the language of autistic children and why.
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© 1978 Plenum Press, New York
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Menyuk, P. (1978). Language: What’s Wrong and Why. In: Rutter, M., Schopler, E. (eds) Autism. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0787-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-0787-7_7
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