Autism Spectrum Disorder Case Study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects various developmental aspects of a child, including language development. Children with autism spectrum disorder often experience setbacks and difficulties in understanding or executing language. The difficulties experienced by those with ASD range from child to child, depending the extent of ASD in each child. Children with ASD and typically developing children experience the development of language in differently from one another. The developmental aspects looked at are phonology, semantics, pragmatics, joint attention, gestures, and also how one’s socioeconomic status may effect a child’s language developments in both cases of children with ASD or not. Language Development

The use of gestures also influences the learning of words and language in children with ASD. Typically developing children begin gesturing around the age of ten months. One example of a gesture, would be a baby gesturing with their hands wanting their mother or father to them pick up. For these children gestures begin without the company of utterances. Gestures begin to be used with utterances when a child’s vocabulary increases. Gestural development is delayed in those with ASD. While typically developing children do not use contact gestures a lot, children with ASD do (Clegg et al, 2007). Parental response to child gestures is an important aspect of language development in children with ASD (Dimitrova et al,2016). For a child to develop language, a parent’s impact regarding gestures helps build the child’s understanding of vocabulary and meaning. A child’s vocabulary can be predicted based on when a child refers to something through the use of gesture. Overall, when compared to typically developing children, those with ASD gesture slower. Although conventional gestures are an area of difficulty, iconic gestures are stronger than deictic gestures in those who are able to form narratives. (Dimitrova et al, 2016). Children with ASD may have a harder time learning and developing gestures, but it is vital in helping a child grow. Gestures are a big aspect in a child’s language development, but a child with ASD may experience cognitive abilities to help with language comprehensions and other language