["Good night, gorilla": Evaluating narratives in children with autism spectrum disorder]

The aim of this study is to propose and apply a systematic narrative analysis protocol for one of the tasks included in the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2), in order to compare narrative production in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typical development, as well as to examine the relationship between narrative ability and ASD severity.

Twenty-four children (12 with ASD without intellectual disability; 12 with typical development) were assessed using the story "Goodnight, Gorilla". The narratives were analyzed in terms of length, syntactic complexity, content and internal state language.

The ASD group produced significantly shorter narratives with fewer main ideas. No significant differences were found in syntactic complexity and internal state language. No correlations were found between ASD severity and narrative indicators.

Although children with ASD produced narratives with similar syntactic complexity, they showed difficulties in selecting and integrating essential information, indicating a dissociation among the linguistic abilities involved in narrative discourse. The applied protocol may serve as a useful resource for ASD assessment and for planning interventions aimed at fostering narrative skills in this population.