Haskins Publications

Number	1406
Year	2005
Drawer	26
Entry Date	04/07/2008
Authors	Levy, E.T. & Fowler, C.A.
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Publication	Imagination, Cognition and Personality, V., 24:No.3, pp. 207-244.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1406.pdf
Abstract	High-functioning autistic children often behave as if they fail to integrate information or seek out coherence. In this article we present a social-pragmatic account of this impairment, in which we propose that social and linguistic deficits tend to isolate autistic children from the experiences that promote the integration of information by other children. This hypothesis is based on the view that, in typical human development, language plays a central role in creating coherence, including the ability to infer the intentions of others. The proposal is supported by a case study of an autistic adolescent who, when provided with adult scaffolding as he repeatedly retells a story, shows the same kinds of changes shown by unimpaired, although younger, children. An implication is that the difficulty that autistic children have in pulling information together arises, in part, from problems with the narrative mode of discourse. We infer that, provided with the right kinds of language-use experiences, high-functioning autistic children may develop the ability to find coherence in the events they experience.
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