ABSTRACT

Purpose

to assess the pragmatic and social communicative abilities of children with Typical Language Development (TLD), Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).

Methods

Participants were 40 parents and 29 teachers of 40 children ages between 3 and 6 years. Ten children had DLD, ten had ASD and 20 had typical development. All participants answered to the questionnaire of the “Assessment of Pragmatic Language and Social Communication – APLSC – parent and professional reports – beta research version. Data were submitted to statistical analysis.

Results

The assessment tool was useful in identifying the difference in performance of children with different social communicative profiles.

Conclusion

Children with ASD presented social and pragmatic impairments that were more significant than those presented by children with DLD. However, both children with ASD and with DLD presented more social pragmatic difficulties than children with TLD.

Keywords
Language Tests; Child Language; Child Development; Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences; Social Communication; Cultural Competence; Communication