The communicative function of question production in autistic children

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

Background:

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by social communication challenges.
• Inappropriate questioning is a noted conversational behavior in some autistic children.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the communicative function of repetitive questioning in autistic children.
• To determine if adult responses influence conversational continuation in autistic children.

Main Methods:

• Six autistic children with a history of inappropriate questioning participated.
• Conversational contexts were created with systematically varied adult responses.
• The occurrence and amount of appropriate conversational continuation were measured.

Main Results:

• Listener responses significantly affected the occurrence of conversational continuation.
• Adult responses had a lesser effect on the amount of conversational continuation.
• Repetitive questioning appears to serve as a conversation initiation strategy.

Conclusions:

• The findings support the hypothesis that repetitive questioning initiates conversations in autistic individuals.
• Autistic conversants may lack the skills to sustain conversations after their questions are answered.