An Analysis of Speech Responses Experienced by Autistic People in “Special Books by Special Kids” Youtube Channel

Abstract

This research examines psycholinguistic analysis of speech responses experienced by autistic people in Special Books by Special Kids YouTube Channel. The aims of this research are to identify the types of responses produced by autistic people, and to analyze how these types of responses are realized by autistic people in Special Books by Special Kids YouTube channel. It is important for us to understand that autistic people are able to respond and understand what other people say because there are still many people who think that people with autism are people whose words are always considered untrue and cannot be fully trusted. It is just that they are more focused on themselves so they have difficulty getting along with those around them. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method with 17 videos as the data sources. The data of this research are responses uttered by autistic people. This study uses Rothwell's (2000) theory of autistic response in conversation and use Cook’s theory (1971) and Searle's theory (1979) to explain the types of utterances spoken by autistic people in the video. The results of the study indicate the responses that appears the most is the cognitively relevant response from 60 utterances out of 92 data. This proves that autistic people can respond relevantly to the conversation even though they have difficulty in communicating.