Pragmatic skills in children with autism spectrum disorder
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23925/2176-2724.2025v37i1e69731Keywords:
Autism, Speech, Language, Social communication disorder, Autism spectrum disorderAbstract
Objective: To evaluate pragmatic skills in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, using the Protocol for the Assessment of Pragmatic Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Method: The convenience sample included 115 children with autism spectrum disorder, of both sexes, whose data were collected by nine speech therapists at a speech therapy clinic in the Midwest Region of Brazil. For statistical analyses, the basic assumptions of the results obtained in the application of Protocol for the Assessment of Pragmatic Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders were evaluated. The one-sample binomial, chi-square, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests were used to assess the occurrence of statistical difference between the social communication skills observed in children with autism spectrum disorder when only two different responses were obtained, when more than two types of responses were obtained, and between the different types of responses to assess social communication skills for each child, respectively. Results: Of the 115 participating children, 98 (85.7%) are male, 59 (84.3%) attended school, and their ages ranged between 3 and 12 years. Of the 29 questions that make up the five Protocol for the Assessment of Pragmatic Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders factors, i.e. language, inadequacy, interactivity, functionality, and responsiveness, we observed that the null hypothesis was rejected in 79.3% of the responses from the speech therapists who collected the data. The adoption of the null hypothesis indicates that no statistically significant difference was found in the perception of the performance of the children evaluated in relation to pragmatic skills, an outcome corroborated by the literature when identifying heterogeneity and uniqueness in the communication of people with autism spectrum disorder. Conclusion: The identification of unique points of difficulty in social (pragmatic) communication should contribute to raising awareness of the need to offer children with autism spectrum disorder interventions that stimulate and train their broader communicative skills, social cognition, and verbal capacity, i.e. their ability to conversation.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Marcos Henrique Borges, Valeriana de Castro Guimarães, Deborah Branco Ferreira Perilo, Edson Junior de Melo Fernandes, Angelina Emiliano Oliveira, Ivone Felix Sousa, Fernanda Dreux Miranda Fernandes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
