Background and aims

Prior work has examined how children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder who are minimally verbal use their spoken language abilities during interactions with others. However, social communication includes other aspects beyond speech. To our knowledge, no studies have examined how minimally verbal children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder are using their gestural communication during social interactions. Such work can provide important insights into how gestures may complement their spoken language abilities.

Methods

Fifty minimally verbal children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder participated (M_age = 12.41 years; 38 males). Gestural communication was coded from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Children (n = 25) and adolescents (n = 25) were compared on their production of gestures, gesture–speech combinations, and communicative functions. Communicative functions were also assessed by the type of communication modality: gesture, speech, and gesture–speech to examine the range of communicative functions across different modalities of communication. To explore the role gestures may play the relation between speech utterances and gestural production was investigated.

Results

Analyses revealed that (1) minimally verbal children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder did not differ in their total number of gestures. The most frequently produced gesture across children and adolescents was a reach gesture, followed by a point gesture (deictic gesture), and then conventional gestures. However, adolescents produced more gesture–speech combinations (reinforcing gesture-speech combinations) and displayed a wider range of communicative functions. (2) Overlap was found in the types of communicative functions expressed across different communication modalities. However, requests were conveyed via gesture more frequently compared to speech or gesture–speech. In contrast, dis/agree/acknowledging and responding to a question posed by the conversational partner was expressed more frequently via speech compared to gesture or gesture–speech. (3) The total number of gestures was negatively associated with total speech utterances after controlling for chronological age, receptive communication ability, and nonverbal IQ.

Conclusions

Adolescents may be employing different communication strategies to maintain the conversational exchange and to further clarify the message they want to convey to the conversational partner. Although overlap occurred in communicative functions across gesture, speech, and gesture–speech, nuanced differences emerged in how often they were expressed across different modalities of communication. Given their speech production abilities, gestures may play a compensatory role for some individuals with autism spectrum disorder who are minimally verbal.

Implications

Findings underscore the importance of assessing multiple modalities of communication to provide a fuller picture of their social communication abilities. Our results identified specific communicative strengths and areas for growth that can be targeted and expanded upon within gesture and speech to optimize social communication development.

中文翻译：

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患有自闭症谱系障碍的语言能力极差的儿童和青少年如何使用交流手势来补​​充他们的口语能力？

背景和目标

之前的工作研究了患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童和青少年在与他人互动时如何使用他们的口语能力。然而，社交沟通还包括言语之外的其他方面。据我们所知，还没有研究调查患有自闭症谱系障碍的儿童和青少年在社交互动中如何使用手势进行交流。此类工作可以为了解手势如何补充他们的口语能力提供重要的见解。

方法

50 名患有自闭症谱系障碍的语言能力最低的儿童和青少年参与了研究（M_年龄 = 12.41 岁；38 名男性）。手势交流是根据自闭症诊断观察表进行编码的。对儿童 ( n  = 25) 和青少年 ( n  = 25) 的手势、手势-言语组合和交流功能进行了比较。交流功能还通过交流方式的类型进行评估：手势、言语和手势-言语，以检查不同交流方式的交流功能范围。为了探索手势可能发挥的作用，研究了言语表达和手势产生之间的关系。

结果

分析显示（1）患有自闭症谱系障碍的最低限度语言儿童和青少年的手势总数没有差异。儿童和青少年最常使用的手势是伸手手势，其次是点手势（指示手势），然后是传统手势。然而，青少年产生了更多的手势-言语组合（强化手势-言语组合）并表现出更广泛的交际功能。(2)不同沟通方式所表达的沟通功能类型存在重叠。然而，与语音或手势语音相比，通过手势传达请求的频率更高。相比之下，与手势或手势语音相比，不同意/同意/承认和回答对话伙伴提出的问题更频繁地通过语音表达。(3) 在控制实际年龄、接受性沟通能力和非语言智商后，手势总数与总言语量呈负相关。

结论

青少年可能会采用不同的沟通策略来维持对话交流并进一步澄清他们想要传达给对话伙伴的信息。尽管手势、言语和手势-言语之间的交流功能存在重叠，但不同交流方式的表达频率存在细微差别。鉴于他们的言语产生能力，手势可能对一些言语能力最低的自闭症谱系障碍患者起到补偿作用。

影响

研究结果强调了评估多种沟通方式的重要性，以更全面地了解他们的社交沟通能力。我们的结果确定了特定的沟通优势和增长领域，可以在手势和言语中进行针对性和扩展，以优化社交沟通的发展。