Abstract
This paper reported on an experiment about the comprehension of Japanese directional demonstratives, "kocchi" "socchi" and "acchi" among 14 autistic children (CA: 5-7) and 33 typically developing children (CA: 5-12). Comprehension of this type is one characteristic of pragmatic language. The results revealed that when a subject (listener) stood facing opposite of an experimenter (speaker), children with autism performed significantly less well with general use of demonstratives than did typically developing children. In the case of typically developing children, there was no difference according to position (opposite vs. along side). In contrast, autistic children had particular difficulty with directional demonstratives when they stood opposite the experimenter. Overall, children with autism showed persistent responses and lacked in the ability to use nonverbal clues during this experiment.
