Brief report: An exploratory study of lexical skills in bilingual children with autism spectrum disorder

J Autism Dev Disord. 2012 Jul;42(7):1499-503. doi: 10.1007/s10803-011-1366-y.

Abstract

Studying lexical diversity in bilingual children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can contribute important information to our understanding of language development in this diverse population. In this exploratory study, lexical comprehension and production and overall language skills were investigated in 14 English-Chinese bilingual and 14 English monolingual preschool-age children with ASD. Results indicated that both groups had equivalent scores on all but one measure of language and vocabulary, including English production vocabulary, conceptual production vocabulary, and vocabulary comprehension. When comparing the two languages of bilingual participants, there were no significant differences in production vocabulary size or vocabulary comprehension scores. The results provide evidence that bilingual English-Chinese preschool-age children with ASD have the capacity to function successfully as bilinguals.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • British Columbia
  • Child
  • Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / diagnosis*
  • Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / epidemiology*
  • Child, Preschool
  • China / ethnology
  • Comorbidity
  • Comprehension
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Emigrants and Immigrants*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language Development Disorders / diagnosis
  • Language Development Disorders / epidemiology
  • Language Tests
  • Male
  • Multilingualism*
  • Vocabulary