Children with autism don’t follow certain grammatical rules, according to one of the few studies of the disorder from the field of linguistics.

Autism’s bafflingly diverse array of language deficits — from word repetition to unusual syllable stresses to speaking in a monotone or sing-songy voice or not at all — has always been a hot topic of research. But the vast majority of studies in the past 30 years have focused on semantics, or the meaning of words, and pragmatics, the way that intentions, implications, history and other subtle social contexts affect meaning.

In contrast, the new study, published online 21 March in Applied Psycholinguistics, is one of a handful to look at autism and syntax, or the rules that govern how sentences are structured. The researchers found that children with autism don’t understand reflexive pronouns such as ‘himself’ and ‘herself.’

“What we’re arguing here is that autistic kids have some real grammatical deficits, not just communication deficits,” says lead investigator Ken Wexler, professor of brain and cognitive science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This distinction is important, he adds, because many computational linguists, including Wexler himself, believe that grammatical abilities are controlled by specific, innate structures in the brain, whereas semantic and pragmatic skills are more complicated and learned over time. Sorting out which deficits are common in autism could shed light on the brain systems derailed in the disorder.

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SFARI, April 2012.