Characteristics of pragmatic language in children with high functioning autism were examined by studying verbal expression of the Japanese demonstratives ko/so/a. A transcript of talk of a 60 minute talk between two high functioning autistic children was compared with a transcript of similar length between two typically developing children. The typically developing children were matched on mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU). The results revealed that children with high functioning autism used more ko-demonstratives and less so-demonstratives than typically developing children. Furthermore they showed a lack of making practical use of nonverbal clues. These results suggested the following three possibilities. (1) Children with high functioning autism failed to take others' viewpoint. (2) They had difficulty in the proper use of the demonstratives in context because of lack of making practical use of nonverbal clues. (3) Their talk reflected limited interest in other people.

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A self-assessment of hearing by hearing-impaired children in daily life was carried out. The self-assessment of hearing was performed using a set of 28 items developed for the study. The subjects were 42 hearing-impaired children who were on the register in an elementary school for the deaf. The results were as follows: (1) There was a negative correlation between the self-assessment result and the hearing level. (2) Through the principal factor analysis with varimax rotation, 4 factors-familiar sound, social signal sound, low frequency sound and unfamiliar sound, were identified from 20 items of hearing of the sound, and 2 factors-speaker's specific difficulty and conversation familiarity, were identified from 6 items of the conversation understanding. (3) Twenty-six items obtained by the principal factor analysis had an overall reliability of 0.899 (Cronbach's alpha), and inner consistency of those items was confirmed.

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