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Pragmatic language disorder and perspective taking in autistic speakers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Joanne Volden ,
R. F. Mulcahy  and
G. Holdgrafer
Joanne Volden*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
R. F. Mulcahy
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
G. Holdgrafer
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
*
J. Volden, Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, 5804 Fairview Ave., Vancouver, British Columbia V6J 4X9, Canada
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Abstract

The relationship between pragmatic referential communication skill and the cognitive ability to assess and assume another person's conceptual viewpoint was investigated in the autistic population. Ten high functioning autistic adolescents and young adults were matched for age and sex to normally developing controls and given referential communication and perspectivetaking tasks that had been previously demonstrated to be of comparable complexity. The groups were selected to be similar in terms of language skill.But despite their intact, elementary perspective-taking skills, the autistic subjects displayed significant communicative dysfunction. This suggests that factors other than a deficiency in the development of a “theory of mind” are significant contributors to the social communicative disorder associated with autism.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 1997 , pp. 181 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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