Sensorimotor skills and language comprehension in autistic children

Marian Sigman*, Judy Ungerer

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    41 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The objectives of this study were to examine the level of sensorimotor concepts of young autistic children and to relate these concepts to language comprehension. A sample of 16 autistic children with a mean mental age of 24.8 months was administered a standardized scale of sensorimotor intelligence and of receptive language. The autistic children demonstrated surprisingly sophisticated sensorimotor skills, particularly object permanence. While their initial performance was inferior to that of normal controls matched on mental age, particularly in their use of objects in combination, the difference between groups diminished on the second test administration. On the receptive language measure, the autistic children were less able to identify words correctly. The sensorimotor behavior of autistic children who demonstrated language comprehension did not differ from those who showed no language comprehension, except that the former group tended to use an object as an instrument somewhat more frequently. The fact that the autistic children were so impaired in language even with fairly good sensorimotor skills suggests that these skills, particularly object permanence, play a minor role in their language acquisition.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)149-165
    Number of pages17
    JournalJournal of Abnormal Child Psychology
    Volume9
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jun 1981

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Sensorimotor skills and language comprehension in autistic children'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this