The Partial Noncommunication of Culture to Autistic Children—An Application of Human Ethology

Abstract

Autistic children’s incompetence in the use of language and symbols has attracted much attention in recent years. Fifty percent of autistic children are mute, and others show characteristic peculiarities of language such as reversal of the pronouns “I” and “you,” echolalia, repetitive and out of context speech, few questions or spontaneous utterances, and the idiosyncratic use of words. As Kanner (1943) remarked, they rarely use language to communicate. Rutter (1974) has found that nearly all autistic children show language peculiarities and retardation and in fact he suggests this as a diagnostic criterion.