Childhood language skills as predictors of social, adaptive and behavior outcomes of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Background: Children with autism, including those without intellectual disability (ASD-ID), experience poor social and adaptive development in adolescence. Although language difficulties are commonly identified in children ASD-ID, there has been little empirical research that has analyzed the influence of these difficulties in social, adaptive and behavioural outcomes in adolescence. Methods and procedure: Structural and pragmatic language of 45 children with ASD-ID were assessed at childhood (aged 7-11) through The Children Communication Checklist (CCC-2) completed by parents. More than four-years later, in the follow-up, prosocial behaviour and peer relationships, daily living and socialization skills and behavioural difficulties were evaluated. Results: Multiple regression analysis exploring the relationships between structural and pragmatic language and the different developmental outcomes, showed that pragmatic language significantly predicted all three domains, especially stereotyped language and use of context. However, structural language (semantics in particular) only accounted for a significant proportion in the variance in prosocial behaviour and socialization skills. Conclusions and implications: Taken together, these findings indicate that structural language and, particularly pragmatic language, are relevant predictors of ASD social and behavioural outcomes in adolescence. Therefore, a detailed language assessment might be an important target of ASD diagnostic practice for improving the development of children with ASD-ID.