Early Two-Word Utterances in Autistic Children

Abstract

The construction of early two-word utterances in Japanese autistic children was investigated. The subjects who participated in the collection of speech samples were two autistic children at the age of 4 years and 1 month old (female, PIQ64) and 6 years old (male, IQ 60). A speech sample was taperecorded during therapy, and transcriptions were made afterwards. Th e number of utterances of each subject amounted to more than 1,000 in analysis.
The numbers of two-word utterances and multiword (three or more words) utterances which were analyzed were 75 and 102 for each subject. In the analysis, only the different forms of these utterances were examined.
1) Early two-word utterance s were described according to eleven types such as 'connective', 'topic-comment', 'action sentence: agent, object, state of event', 'modifier of entity: possession', 'combined predicate'. In the descriptions of syntactic construction in pr evious studies, samples were not sufficiently analyzed. It is noteworthy that the type `topic-comment', not included in other studies, was necessary. This type is not syntactic but contextual. Moreover, the category of 'action sentence: agent', including experiencer and subject of attribution, is much broader in its meaning than the category agent in case grammar.
2) The characteristics of two-word utterances of autistic children were summ a rized as global delay compared with mental development or other aspects of language development. However, when examined closely, a) there were tendencies for 'action sentence; state of event' and 'modifier of entity' not to be differentiated yet, and b) there were many examples of 'incomplete action sentence'.
Discussion was made as to the description of syntactic constructions, the methodological problems in description, and the characteristics of autistic children and the suggestions for a clinical setting.