Using Spoken Language Benchmarks to Characterize the Expressive Language Skills of Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Purpose: Spoken language benchmarks proposed by Tager-Flusberg et al. (2009) were used to characterize communication profiles of toddlers with autism spectrum disorders and to investigate if there were differences in variables hypothesized to influence language development at different benchmark levels. Method: The communication abilities of a large sample of toddlers with autism spectrum disorders (N = 105) were characterized in terms of spoken language benchmarks. The toddlers were grouped according to these benchmarks to investigate whether there were differences in selected variables across benchmark groups at a mean age of 2.5 years. Results: The majority of children in the sample presented with uneven communication profiles with relative strengths in phonology and significant weaknesses in pragmatics. When children were grouped according to one expressive language domain, acrossgroup differences were observed in response to joint attention and gestures but not cognition or restricted and repetitive behaviors. Conclusion: The spoken language benchmarks are useful for characterizing early communication profiles and investigating features that influence expressive language growth.