Autism 1 –10 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions:

aut.sagepub.com Some pictures inform viewers about specific objects and events in the world (they are contextualized). The ability to utilize these pictures requires the understanding that visual representations correspond to elements of reality, even if they are absent at the time of viewing. Through infancy and early childhood, typically developing (TD) children learn how pictures relate to real-world referents (e.g. DeLoache and Burns, 1994; Preissler and Carey, 2004). For many minimally verbal children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), pictures have additional importance: they provide an alternative form of functional communication in the absence of verbal language (e.g. Anderson et al., 2007). However, despite the popularity of interventions such as the Picture Exchange Communication Syste