2022 Volume 63 Issue 2 Pages 123-131
This study examined longitudinally the characteristics of utterances of 7 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) starting at 3; 0-4; 0, employing a story generation task. Seven typically developing (TD) children served as controls. The children were asked to make a story after hearing the introduction of a story, using a doll and miniature objects as props. Results showed that the two groups of children followed similar developmental paths with respect to spontaneity and structural aspects of utterance. In terms of story content, however, the children with ASD produced fewer story episodes and sequences of episodes, and expressed more utterances unrelated to the story than the TD children at the beginning of the observation. These differences disappeared and episode sequences grew with increasing age in both groups of children.
