Expository and persuasive discourse in school-aged children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulty in a range of language domains that can affect their spoken language. An area that has not had extensive research done is that of explorative and persuasive discourse in individuals with ASD in terms of use of syntax in comparison to Typically Developing (TD) peers. The present study examined the language production of children with ASD across the domains of expository and persuasive language. Language was examined through syntactic complexity, language content, and information processing issues. Participants were split into three groups; 1) children diagnosed with ASD; 2) a language matched group of typically developing children (LA); and 3) participants of the same chronological age as the ASD group (CA). The CA and LA groups were also gender matched with the ASD group. The ASD and LA groups differed significantly from the CA group in both discourse tasks. For the persuasive discourse task there were significant differences between groups for; total number of words, total number of T-units, total number of clauses, number of supporting reasons and the attitude. There were significant differences between groups for; total number of words, total number of errors, total number of T-units, total number of clauses and nominal and adverbial clause use in the expository discourse task. Information processing also showed some significant differences between groups in this task. Analysis of group versus genre also highlighted some areas of significant differences between persuasive and expository discourse, this is discussed. Clinical implications for assessment and intervention for the ASD population are discussed