Intentional Communication of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Judgments of Different Communication Partners

The purpose of this study was to examine judgments made by different listeners of the communicative intent, specifically requesting and rejecting, of young children with autism and limited expressive language. Video clips from a structured assessment study of three young children with autism spectrum disorder were edited and viewed by adult raters from four subgroups. Analysis of the findings indicated that those who were both familiar and expert were more accurate and more confident in their judgments than those who were unfamiliar and non-expert. There was more variation among the four subgroups of raters in accuracy related to rejecting compared to requesting behavior. It was concluded that collaboration in the determination of intention and consistency of responding to specific communicative forms among all individuals who are involved in the child's life appear to be important steps in developing common communication goals.