The communicative function of question production in autistic children

Six children diagnosed as autistic and who also were reported to be using questions inappropriately in their conversations with adults were each placed in a conversational context in which the adult responses to their questions were systematically varied to support the hypothesis that repetitive questioning in this population serves the communicative function of conversation initiation.

Abstract

Six children diagnosed as autistic and who also were reported to be using questions inappropriately in their conversations with adults were each placed in a conversational context in which the adult responses to their questions were systematically varied. The dependent variable was the occurrence and amount of appropriate conversational continuation associated with each type of adult response. Differential listener response did affect the occurrence of conversational continuation and to a lesser degree the amount of continuation. These data were interpreted to support the hypothesis that repetitive questioning in this population serves the communicative function of conversation initiation. Furthermore, it appears that the autistic conversants lack the conversational management skills to maintain the conversation following the listener's answer to the question.