Differentiating Autism from Typical Development: Preliminary Findings of Greek Versions of a Pragmatic Language and Social Communication Questionnaire
Yvette D. Hyter
Ioannis Vogindroukas
Evripidis Chelas
Konstantinos Paparizos
Eleni Kivrakidou
Vasiliki Kaloudi
In press, Folia Phoniatrica Logopedia
Objective: A social pragmatic communication disorder is one of the primary characteristics of children with Autism. Although several measures of pragmatics and social communication exist, many are not comprehensive, do not examine the quality of interactions across contexts and interlocutors, and cannot be easily administered and interpreted. The aim of this article is to report on preliminary data collected using the Greek version of comprehensive social communication and pragmatic language questionnaires completed by parents and teachers interacting with young children in different contexts.
Methods: A Greek translation of the social communication and pragmatic language questionnaires were administered to parents of 31 children diagnosed with autism and teachers of 51 typically developing children aged 3;0 – 6;0 years.
Analysis and Results: Performance on the Greek versions of the social communication and pragmatic language questionnaires of typically developing children was compared with the performance of the children with autism using a series of independent t-tests. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize participant characteristics and performances on the measure. Preliminary results showed that significant differences with moderate effect sizes were found between groups on 63% of the 30 test items.
Conclusions: The performance of children on questionnaires may lead to the development of easily administered and interpretable assessments for differentiating children with pragmatic and social communication impairments, such as children with autism, from typically developing children.